£ 
446 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


THE  BORDER  STATES: 


THEIR 


POWER  AND  DUTY 


PRESENT  DISORDERED  CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


BY 


HON.    JOHN    P.,  KENNEDY, 

' 


PHILADELPHIA  : 

J.    P.     LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

1861. 

1 


THE  BORDER  STATES 


THEIR 


POWER  AND  DUTY 


THE  PRESENT  DISORDERED  CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


BY 


HON.   JOHN    P.   KENNEDY. 


PHILADELPHIA  : 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT     &     CO. 

1861. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1861,  by 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  &  CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania. 


THE   BORDER   STATES, 


THE  country  is  now,  or,  from  all  the  tidings  that  reach  us, 
must  soon  be  compelled  to  accept  the  fact  that  South  Caro 
lina  has  seceded  from  the  Union. 

Whatever  may  be  the  right  of  secession,  it  is  about  to 
become  a  practical  fact.  South  Carolina  has  announced  her 
purpose,  as  far  as  it  is  in  her  power,  to  dissolve  the  Union. 
Other  States  belonging  to  that  series  which  has  lately  assumed 
the  designation  of  the  Cotton  States — as  expressive  of  a  pecul 
iar  affinity  in  interest  and  policy — are  likely  to  follow  her  ex 
ample.  Alabama,  which  is,  in  some  sense,  the  offspring  and 
pupil  of  Carolina,  has  shown  herself  already  too  eager  to  pre 
cipitate  herself  into  revolution  to  leave  us  any  hope  that  she 
will  hesitate  to  array  herself  on  the  side  of  her  teacher. 
Perhaps  we  may  still  find  some  encouragement  to  a  better 
augury,  in  the  good  sense  and  prudence  of  Georgia  and  the 
other  States  which  have  not  been  wholly  possessed  and  fevered 
by  that  extraordinary  contagion  of  frenzy  which  Carolina  has 
spread  through  the  lowlands  of  the  South.  But  I  confess  my 
fears.  The  signs  are  against  it.  The  chances  are — for  this 
event  is  not  under  the  control  of  the  sober  judgment  and  wise 
estimate  by  which  all  matters  of  State  should  be  directed — 
the  chances  are  that  passion  will  rule  the  hour,  and  that  the 
revolution  will  move  onward,  swayed  by  the  same  rash  impulses 
as  those  in  which  it  originated. 

We  of  the  Border  States,  therefore,  cannot  too  soon  take 
counsel  together,  touching  our  own  interest  and  duty  in  the 
new  condition  of  affairs  which  is  about  to  be  forced  upon  us. 


K/R73Q48 


The  question  that  now  concerns  us  is — What  position  are  we 
to  assume  in  the  beginning  of  the  strife;  where  are  we  to 
place  ourselves  at  the  end  of  it  ? 

Is  it  not  very  obvious  that  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
Missouri,  North  Carolina,  and  Maryland  cannot,  with  any 
respect  for  their  own  dignity,  with  any  regard  for  their  own 
welfare,  or  with  any  security  for  their  own  peace,  suffer  them 
selves  to  be  dragged  into  that  track  of  revolution  and  civil 
war,  of  wild  experiment  and  visionary  project  into  which 
Carolina  is  endeavoring  to  force  them  ?  These  States  are 
quite  able  to  determine  for  themselves  what  griefs  they  suffer 
and  what  redress  they  require :  they  want  no  officious  coun 
selor  nor  patronizing  friend  to  tell  them  what  it  becomes  them 
to  do,  either  for  the  maintenance  of  their  own  honor  or  the 
promotion  of  their  own  advantage;  they  can  hear  with  quiet 
scorn  the  taunt  that  they  "  have  placed  the  Union  above  the 
rights  and  institutions  of  the  South" — and  hold  at  what  it 
deserves  the  offensive  rebuke  "that  no  Southern  State  intent 
on  vindicating  her  rights  and  preserving  her  institutions  would 
go  into  conference  with  them."* 

Every  substantial  hope  of.  a  successful  issue  out  of  the  afflic 
tions  of  the  country,  produced  equally  by  the  wickedness  of 
Northern  fanaticism,  and  the  intemperate  zeal  of  secession, 
depends  upon  the  calm  and  earnest  wisdom  of  the  Border 
States.  That  they  will  be  true  to  the  duties  of  the  crisis,  no 
one  who  has  studied  their  character  can  for  a  moment  doubt. 

However  the  lowland  States  may  now  slight  their  counsels 
and  disparage  their  patriotism,  it  is  a  most  weighty  and  sig 
nificant  truth,  for  the  consideration  of  the  leaders  of  the  pro 
jected  revolution,  that  the  Border  States  are  at  this  time  the 
most  authentic  representatives  of  the  conservative  power  of 
the  Union.  Their  various  and  equal  relations  to  the  North, 


*  See  the  Charleston  Mercury  of  November  19,  where  this  language 
is  held  to  Yirginia  and  the  other  Border  States,  in  the  editorial  headed 
"Southern  Conference — too  late." 


the  South,  and  the  West,  their  social  organization  for  the  sup 
port  of  every  interest  connected  with  good  government  and 
permanent  peace,  their  internal  strength,  and,  above  all,  their 
healthful  tone  of  opinion  toward  the  preservation  of  consti 
tutional  right  and  resistance  against  wrong,  point  them  out  as 
the  safest  and  best  arbiters  in  the  present  difficulties  of  the 
country.  Whatever  there  is  of  real  vigor  in  the  slaveholding 
communities,  exists  in  them  and  is  derived  in  greatest  degree, 
by  others,  from  their  sympathy  and  alliance.  Without  them, 
we  may  affirm,  that  no  confederacy  of  Slave  States,  at  all 
worthy  of  respect  and  consideration  as  an  independent  power, 
can  possibly  be  formed. 

The  attempt,  whenever  made,  will  speedily  prove  itself  to 
be  a  most  unhappy  failure. 

The  Border  States  have  a  better  right  to  claim  a  hearing, 
just  now,  than  any  other  member  of  the  Union.  Indeed,  until 
they  have  spoken,  it  would  almost  seem  to  savor  of  an  unbe 
coming  officiousness  on  the  part  of  any  other  State  to  put 
itself  in  the  van  to  raise  an  outcry  of  wrong  or  to  dictate  the 
measure  of  remedy. 

While  these  States  have  always  manifested  a  just  and  be 
coming  sensibility  to  their  rights,  connected  with  the  employ 
ment  of  slave  labor,  and  have  shared  in  the  common  indigna 
tion  of  the  South  against  the  malignant  hostility  of  certain 
sections  of  the  Northern  people;  while  they  have  been  the 
chief  and  almost  only  sufferers  from  the  inroads  of  organized 
abolitionists,  who  have  stealthily  abstracted  their  slaves  in 
numbers  whose  value  may  be  reckoned  at  little  less  than  a 
million  of  dollars  a  year ;  while,  indeed,  it  may  be  said,  that 
these  States  are  the  only  portions  of  the  slaveholding  region 
which  have  any  direct,  immediate  or  definite  interest,  worthy 
of  special  consideration,  in  the  vexed  questions  touching  the 
present  or  the  future  of  slavery  in  the  United  States — that  is 
to  say,  in  the  question  of  emigration  to  the  territories,  the 
rendition  of  fugitives,  and  the  organization  of  new  States — 
they  have,  nevertheless,  shown  themselves  in  all  contingencies, 


6 

the  confident  and  considerate  assertors  of  their  rights  in  the 
mode  ordained  by  the  Constitution,  and  at  all  times  the  deter 
mined  friends  of  the  Union.  They  have  never  yet  felt  an 
aggression  which  they  did  not  believe  more  effectively  to  be 
repelled  by  the  due  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  government, 
than  by  retreat  before  the  aggressor  and  resort  to  a  covert 
revolution  that  seeks  to  legalize  its  action  by  taking  the  name 
of  secession. 

They  certainly  cannot  be  expected  now,  with  the  painful 
conviction  which  passing  events  are  creating  in  their  minds — 
that  the  Union  itself  is  the  chief  grievance  which  stirs  the 
hostility  of  those  who  are  most  active  in  raising  a  banner  of 
revolt,  and  that  the  assaults  upon  the  property  of  slaveholders, 
of  which  they,  the  Border  States,  have  so  much  cause  to  com 
plain,  are  but  the  pretext  to  cover  a  concealed  design  of  por 
tentous  mischief — they  cannot  be  expected  now,  with  such  a 
^.conviction,  to  renounce  the  wisdom  of  their  accustomed  trust 
in  the  law,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  persuaded  or  beguiled 
into  a  desertion  at  once  of  the  Constitution  which  they  have 
always  respected,  or  of  the  Union  which  they  have  always 
revered.  Their  course  is  too  plainly  marked  out  to  them  by 
the  incidents  of  the  day  to  admit  of  any  such  fatal  aberration 
as  that.  They  are  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  present  crisis 
has  been  forced  upon  the  country  with  a  haste  that  allowed  no 
halt,  chiefly  because  its  contrivers  feared  the  sound  of  that 
voice  from  the  Border  States,  which  they  knew  would  speak 
peace  to  the  troubled  waves  in  strife,  and  would  reach  the 
heart  of  hosts  of  loyal  citizens  in  the  very  bosom  of  the  com 
motion, —  citizens,  alas!  now  bereft  of  their  loyalty  by  the 
force  of  the  tempest  of  revolution  that  has  swept  over  them. 
If  thus  Carolina  and  her  comrades  are  lost — all  is  not  lost. 
There  is  space  for  arbitrament  still  left  which  may  at  least 
secure  an  opportunity  for  mediation,  and  I  would  hope  an 
eventual  settlement  that  may,  perhaps,  include  even  those  who 
are  at  present  the  most  resolute  in  their  recusancy.  Carolina 
now  repeats  defiantly  that  all  chance  of  her  return  is  gone 


forever.  I  would  fain  believe  that  affairs  may  be  conducted 
into  such  a  channel  as  Jx>  awaken  in  her  a  better  view  of  her 
own  future. 

It  is  very  important  that  the  country  should  consider  the 
true  character  of  the  danger  that  threatens  it.  The  public 
mind  is  sadly  at  fault  upon  this  point.  There  has  been  a 
singular  concurrence  of  accident  and  design  to  lead  even  sen 
sible  and  observant  men  off  from  the  perception  of  the  real 
causes  of  this  disturbance ;  and  a  not  less  singular  exhibition 
of  practiced  skill  in  the  address  with  which  the  popular  masses 
in  the  region  of  the  commotion  have  been  enlisted  in  an  enter 
prise  of  the  scope  and  consequences  of  which  they  had  neither 
the  leisure  to  examine  nor  the  temper  to  comprehend. 

The  public  for  the  most  part  believe  that  the  impending 
revolution  grows  out  of  the  organization  of  the  Republican 
party,  and  that  the  recent  election  presented  the  culminating 
point  at  which  that  organization  could  no  longer  be  endured 
with  safety  to  the  Southern  States. 

Unfortunate  as  that  election  is,  not  only  in  its  results,  but 
in  all  the  stages  of  its  progress  from  the  day  of  the  Chicago 
Convention  down  to  that  of  its  consummation — unfortunate 
for  the  tranquillity  of  the  country,  and  for  the  predominance 
it  has  given  to  certain  men  and  certain  political  sects — it  is 
not  less  unfortunate  for  the  opportunity  it  has  afforded  to  the 
accomplishment  of  designs  long  nourished,  which  have  been 
held  in  suspense  only  to  await  a  juncture  favorable  to  their 
success. 

The  graver  and  more  thoughtful  portions  of  the  community 
have  recognized  with  no  little  pain,  the  steady  growth  in  some 
sections  of  the  South,  for  many  years  past,  of  a  disposition 
in  the  leaders  of  Southern  opinion  to  undervalue  both  the 
strength  and  the  beneficence  of  the  Union.  It  belongs  to  the 
school  of  doctrine  of  which  South  Carolina  is  the  head,  to 
imbue  the  people  with  the  idea  that  the  State  Sovereignty  has 
the  first  claim  to  the  allegiance  of  the  citizen,  and  that  no 
more  is  due  to  the  National  Sovereignty  than  may  be  found 


8 

not  incompatible  with  this  superior  duty ;  that  to  support  the 
State,  right  or  wrong,  in  whatever  demand  it  may  make  in 
conflict  with  the  Federal  authority,  is  the  natural  and  most 
proper  exhibition  of  a  becoming  State  pride. 

This  school  has  also  been  the  source  of  certain  theories 
touching  the  structure  and  aims  of  our  government,  which, 
although  founded,  as  we  conceive,  on  mistaken  views  both 
of  the  facts  of  its  history  and  of  the  necessary  conditions 
upon  which  alone  any  government  of  a  population  so  exten 
sive  as  ours  is  practicable,  could  not  but  lead  in  time  to  angry 
dissension  and  inveterate  sectional  prejudice. 

Conspicuous  among  these  theories  are  two  which  have  taken 
a  deep  hold  upon  the  Southern  mind.  To  their  influence  we 
may  trace  no  small  amount  of  the  discontent  which  has  weak 
ened  the  attachment  of  some  of  the  Southern  States  to  the 
Union;  and  which  has  also  led  to  the  large  acceptance  they 
have  given  to  the  efficacy  and  lawfulness  of  that  extreme 
measure  which  Carolina  now  proposes  as  the  proper  remedy 
for  the  evils  which  threaten  her  in  common  with  all  other 
slaveholding  States. 

The  first  of  these  theories  asserts  that  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  was  constructed  on  the  basis  of  an  equilibrium  of  power 
between  the  Free  and  Slave  States,  which  equilibrium  was 
designed  to  be  forever  preserved  in  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
future.  The  failure  to  preserve  it  is  consequently  regarded  as 
a  violation  of  a  fundamental  compromise. 

The  second  is  that  which  affirms  all  import  duties  to  be  an 
exclusive  tax  upon  the  Planting  States,  by  .virtue  of  which 
they  are  burdened  with  the  charge  of  the  entire  support  of 
Government. 

I  might  add  to  these,  that  other  theory  from  the  same  school, 
and  equally  questionable,  which  conceives  the  ever-present 
and  effective  remedy  for  all  real  or  fancied  griefs  to  exist  in 
the  doctrine  of  a  lawful  right  of  secession. 

Without  stopping  to  debate  the  soundness  of  these  several 
tenets,  I  refer  to  them  as  presenting  the  real  germs  of  the  dis- 


9 

content  which  has  been  smouldering  at  the  heart  of  Carolina 
for  years,  and  as  suggesting  the  true  explanation  of  that  phe 
nomenon  which  puzzles  the  whole  nation  at  this  day,  the 
activity,  namely,  and  apparent  supererogatory  zeal  with  which 
Carolina  has  first,  and  before  all  her  sister  States  of  the  South, 
flung  herself  into  the  arena  to  vindicate  them  by  revolution 
and  destruction  of  the  Union. 

These  teachings  have  been  long  silently  undermining  her 
attachment  to  the  Federal  Government,  and  have  at  last 
wholly  obliterated  in  her  that  sentiment  of  reverence  for  the 
Union  which  our  forefathers  inculcated,  with  a  religious 
earnestness,  as  the  foundation  of  American  Nationality. 

It  is  a  fact  of  common  observation  that  the  present  genera 
tion  of  public  men  in  Carolina  have  been  educated  in  ominous 
familiarity  with  the  thought  of  disunion.,  It  has  been  the  toy 
of  their  childhood,  the  weapon  of  their  age  of  active  life.  It 
has  gathered  edge  and  strength  in  a  long  and  petulant  quar 
rel  with  the  National  Government.  It  has,  at  last,  taken 
visible  shape  in  the  instant,  defiant  act  of  secession. 

Carolina  frankly  avows  the  Union  to  be  an  obstruction  to 
her  prosperity.  That  is  not  the  sentiment  alone  of  to-day. 
It  has,  for  years  past,  been  her  earnest  conviction  that  the 
Federal  Government,  administered  on  the  principles  most  ac 
cordant  with  the  wishes  of  a  large  number  of  the  States,  is 
not  compatible  with  her  welfare.  She,  therefore,  thinks  she 
has  a  right  to  retire  from  the  compact  and  assume  the  position 
of  an  independent  nation. 

She,  moreover,  thinks  that  it  is  altogether  consistent  with 
her  duty  to  her  sister  States  with  whom  she  has  had  no 
ground  of  quarrel,  to  propagate  her  own  discontent  among 
such  of  them  as  she  may  deem  useful  to  her  project,  and  by 
persuasion,  solicitation,  and  convention,  to  lure  them  out  of 
the  Union  into  alliance  with  herself. 

The  short  compend  of  these  claims  is  expressed  in  the 
postulate — a  right,  at  her  pleasure,  to  dissolve  the  Union. 


10 

/ 

Every  one  has  heard  and  read  how  pertinaciously  she  has 
argued  this  right  in  every  forum  open  to  her  service. 

Persuading  herself  that  she  has  this  right,  to  he  used 
whenever  she  thinks  proper,  she  deduces  from  it,  quite  logi 
cally,  the  right  to  meditate  over  every  problem  of  possible 
contingencies  which  might,  in  the  evolution  of  events,  be 
turned  to  her  advantage.  As  for  instance,  whether  she 
would  not  thrive  better  if  certain  prohibitions  of  the  Consti- 
i  tution  were  removed  ?  Would  it  be  to  her  benefit  to  make 
Charleston  a  free  port? — to  negoitate  a  commercial  treaty 
with  England? — with  France? — to  make  a  new  Confederacy 
within  the  territory  of  the  Union  ? — to  open  and  re-establish 
the  African  slave-trade  ? — a  hundred  such  questions  which 
she  may  deem  fit  to-  consider  and  determine  while  she  re- 
/  mains  a  member  of  the  Confederacy — and  the  objects  of 
which,  if  she  cannot  accomplish  them  in  the  Union,  she 
thinks  it  unreasonable  to  be  denied  the  privilege  of  accom 
plishing  by  secession  from  the  Union. 

I  would  not  willingly  misrepresent  Carolina — much  less 
speak  in  derogation  of  her  really  high  and  admirable  quali 
ties  of  character.  There  is  no  community  of  the  same  size, 
I  believe,  in  the  world  that  has  produced  a  larger  share  of 
distinguished  men.  There  is  no  society  in  the  United  States 
more  worthy  of  esteem  for  its  refinement,  its  just  and  honor 
able  sentiment,  and  its  genial  virtues. 

The  men  of  Carolina  are  distinguished  by  the  best  quali 
ties  of  attractive  manhood.  They  are  brave,  intelligent  and 
frank.  They  speak  what  they  think,  and  they  mean  what 
they  say.  They  are 'the  last  people  in  this  Union  we  should 
desire  to  part  with — notwithstanding  their  strange  insulation 
of  opinion,  their  exclusive  philosophies,  and,  what  they  must 
pardon  us  for  thinking,  their  political  sophisms ! 

In  these  sundry  meditations  of  theirs,  they  have  long  since 

struck  upon  one  or  more  of  the  conclusions  which  I  have 

;  hinted  above — the  opinion,  namely,  that  they  would  do  better 

in  a  Southern  Confederacy  than  in  the  Union  made  by  their 


11 

forefathers.  And  having  come  to  that  conclusion,  they  have 
wrought  themselves  to  the  sober — or  rather,  let  me  say,  the 
vehement  conclusion  that  they  are  the  most  oppressed  people 
of  Christendom. 

In  1832,  their  oppression  existed  in  the  unhappy  fact  that 
the  Government  persisted  in  continuing  a  policy  originally 
supported,  if  not  demanded,  by  Carolina  herself,  which  was 
founded  upon  the  most  approved  economical  science  of  that 
day,  and  the  practice  of  all  enlightened  nations, — the  en 
couragement  of  the  domestic  industry  of  the  country.  As  a 
remedy  for  this  grief,  they  proposed  secession  and  dissolution 
of  the  Union — but  not  being  unanimous  in  that  conclusion, 
they  resorted  to  the  milder  process  of  nullification. 

How  many  times  since  that,  they  have  determined  to  dis 
solve  the  Union,  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate.  But,  in 
1851,  their  grievances  grew  so  intolerable,  through  the  admis 
sion  of  California  into  the  Union,  with  a  constitution  made 
according  to  its  own  view  of  what  was  best  for  it,  that  all  the 
altars  were  lighted  up  once  more  with  an  unusual  conflagra 
tion  of  the  never-dying  flames  of  liberty  and  independence. 

What  was  the  extent  of  suffering  then,  and  what  the 
peculiar  gravamen  of  that  day,  we  may  learn  from  their  own 
oracles. 

In  order  that  I  may  speak  from  the  book,  I  will  quote  some 
passages — almost  too  long,  but  still  so  full  of  matter  that  I 
am  unwilling  to  shorten  them,  from  the  chosen  and  authentic 
expounder  of  Southern  opinion — The  Southern  Quarterly 
Review. 

In  an  article  of  the  October  number  of  1851,  entitled, 
"South  Carolina,  her  present  attitude  and  future  action," — 
from  the  sum  of  much  grave  advice  touching  revolution,  and 
hinting,  among  other  things,  at  the  passage  of  bills  of  attainder 
and  the  use  of  the  axe,  I  extract  the  following  exposition  of 
wrongs  and  suggestions  of  remedy : — 

"But  the  people  of  South  Carolina,"  says  the  reviewer,  "have 
not  yet  entirely  forgotten  the  angry  feelings  growing  out  of  the 


12 

war  of  the  Revolution.  Well,  then,  let  them  read  over  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  compare  the  wrongs  recited 
there,  with  those  we  now  endure.  What  was  the  actual  grievance 
then?  What  is  it  now  ?  Then  they  'augured  misgovernment  at 
a  distance.'  Now,  the  evil  is  upon  them,  and  tenfold  greater 
evil  than  the  most  far-seeing  politician  of  that  day  anticipated 
from  British  tyranny.  One,  and  but  one  of  the  luxuries  of  the 
rich  was  taxed  not  more  than  five  per  cent.  Now,  every  neces 
sary  of  life  which  she  does  not  produce  at  home,  is  taxed  at  an 
average  rate  of  not  less  than  thirty  per  cent.  Then  Old  Eng 
land  claimed  the  right  to  exact  from  her  a  portion  of  the  revenue 
necessary  for  the  support  of  the  British  Empire,  while  the  amount 
expended  for  the  benefit  of  South  Carolina  very  far  exceeded  all 
that  she  was  called  on  to  contribute.  Now,  New  England  re 
quires  her  together  with  a  few  of  her  uncomplaining  and  acquies 
cent  sisters  to  furnish  the  whole  revenue  of  the  Union,  no  part 
of  which  comes  back  to  them,  except  in  the  shape  of  bribes  to 
such  as  are  willing  to  sell  themselves  into  the  service  of  their 
enemies,  for  Texas  scrip  and  the  emoluments  of  office." 

******* 

"She  (Massachusetts)  was  wronged.     She  was  outlawed 

and  her  port  of  Boston  was  shut.  We  took  up  arms  in  her 
quarrel.  It  was  hardly  our  own.  But  we  made  it  our  own.  It 
was  for  her  that  our  Moultrie,  Marion,  Pickens,  and  Sumpter 
fought  in  defence  of  our  firesides,  against  an  enemy  whom  our 
zeal  in  her  behalf  brought  upon  us.  From  Ninety-Six  to  Charles 
ton  our  country  is  full  of  monuments  of  our  efforts  in  her  cause. 
It  was  for  her  the  gallant  Hayne  died  a  felon's  death ;  and  the 
requital  of  that  sacrifice  is,  to  threaten  the  like  doom  to  his 
descendants  should  they  be  as  bold  in  defence  of  our  own  rights 
as  he  was  then  in  defence  of  hers.  We  separated  ourselves  from 
Old  England  because  the  port  of  Boston  was  shut  up.  Should 
we  now  separate  ourselves  from  New  England,  we  hear  from  Bos 
ton  itself  that  the  port  of  Charleston  is  to  be  shut  up."  *  *  * 

After  this,  we  have  a  glimpse  of  the  remedy  proposed  for 
these  oppressions. 

"What  is  there  at  this  day  antagonistic  between  the  interests 
of  Great  Britain  and  those  of  South  Carolina  ?  Is  not  each  the 
consumer  of  all  the  other's  productions,  reciprocally?  Is  not 
their  relation  like  that  of  the  sexes,  each  necessary  to  the  other  ? 
And  shall  South  Carolina,  like  the  Circassian  slave,  continue  shut 
up  in  the  harem  of  a  brutal  and  sordid  tyrant,  when  a  generous 
lover  is  waiting  to  make  her  his  honored  wife,  and  to  establish 


13 

her  in  wealth  and  comfort  and  freedom  and  all  the  dignity  of  a 
Christian  matron?" 

******* 
— "With  all  her  professions  of  friendship  Massachusetts 
hates  England  with  an  inextinguishable,  because  an  interested 
hatred.  They  are  rivals  in  commerce.  They  are  rivals  in 
manufactures.  An  especial  object  of  rivalry  is  the  commerce  of 
the  Southern  States,  and  hence  Massachusetts  does  all  she  can 
to  keep  alive  their  old  animosities  and  to  prevent  the  growth  of 
any  sympathy  between  us  and  England.  Hence  she  excites  the 
impertinent  clamors  of  English  abolitionists.  What  for  ?  Can 
they  interfere  with  our  institutions  ?  No.  They  can  but  make 
us  angry."  *  *  *  *  * 

It  is  a  mistake,  as  we  may  gather  from  what  follows,  to 
suppose  that  England  is  really  opposed  to  slavery.  Her  pro 
fessed  aversion  to  it  is  a  mere  stratagem  to  allay  her  own 
discontents.  Her  object  is  to  keep  her  own  workpeople 
quiet,  by  inducing  them  to  believe  that  the  world  contains 
more  wretched  beings  than  themselves. 

• -"They   (her   West    India    possessions)   have   become   a 

burthen  to  her.  They  continually  harass  her  with  well-founded 
complaints  and  demand  some  indemnity  in  the  way  of  protection 
to  their  sugar  in  the  English  market.  But  this  is  oppressive  to 
her  people  at  home,  and  especially  to  the  manufacturing  opera 
tive,  -to  whom  coarse  sugars  are  a  necessary  of  life.  To  recon 
cile  him  to  this,  nothing  so  ready  as  an  appeal  to  his  sympathies 
with  his  brother  slave  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic;  and  he,  poor 
wretch,  shut  up  in  the  work-house,  the  factory  or  the  mine, 
readily  believes  that  the  condition  of  the  negro  slave  must  be 
'a  lower  depth  in  that  lowest  deep"1  with  the  horrors  of  which 
he  is  so  familiar." 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

• "Let  but  South  Carolina,  even  alone,  set  up  for  herself, 

and  establish  such  commercial  relations  with  Great  Britain  as 
would  be  best  for  both  parties,  how  long  would  it  be  before  Great 
Britain  would  see  her  interest  in  permitting  and  encouraging 
and  aiding  Jamaica  and  her  other  West  India  Islands,  to  form 
one  State,  and  Demerara  another,  and  to  enter  into  confederacy 
with  South  Carolina?" 

And  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  new  slave-trade  from  America 
would  be  established  by  the  aid  of  England  in  this  hopeful 
project. 


14 

"Getting  slaves  from  the  continent,  they  would  need  no  more 
protection,  and  all  clamor  about  'slave-grown  sugar'  would  cease 
forever.  Entering  the  ports  of  England  under  a  moderate  revenue 
tariff,  the  sugar  would  find  its  way  to  the  operative  at  half  its 
present  price,  and  the  poor  woman,  wasted  and  worn  by  her  twelve 
hours  of  unceasing  toil,  would  not  be  obliged  to  deny  herself  the 
cheering  influence  of  her  indispensable  cup  of  tea — her  only  lux 
ury  and  not  her  least  necessary." 

It  is  with  such  food  as  this  that  the  mind  of  warm-hearted, 
impulsive,  credulous  Carolina  is  fed  to  nurture  this  project  of 
disunion ! 

Extravagant  as  this  declamation  may  appear  to  a  calm 
reader,  capable  of  estimating,  at  their  true  value,  the  happy 
certainties  that  belong  to  the  present  and  the  future  of  a 
State  in  the  American  Union,  and  the  dreadful  uncertainties 
that  impend  over  separation,  even  in  its  most  hopeful  reckon 
ing,  it  nevertheless  expresses  the  views  and  expectations  of 
that  portion,  at  least,  of  the  community  in  which  it  is  uttered, 
who  have  been  allowed  "  to  instruct  the  Southern  mind  and 
fire  the  Southern  heart"  for  the  momentous  struggle  which 
is  now  inaugurated  in  South  Carolina.  In  that  aspect  it  is 
worthy  of  special  notice  at  this  time. 

It  demonstrates  what  I  have  already  intimated,  that  the 
secession  movement  is  not  the  suddenly  inspired  project  of  the 
present  day ;  that  it  does  not  grow  out  of  the  events  'of  the 
recent  canvass  and  election^  nor  even  primarily  out  of  that 
agitation  of  slavery,  which  constitutes  the  flagrant  cause  of 
disturbance  in  the  Border  States. 

If  we  analyze  this  paper  we  shall  see  that  the  aggressions 
of  the  Northern  States  upon  the  peaceful  employment  of 
Southern  labor,  is  scarcely  referred  to  at  all:  that  the  real 
and  predominant  grievance  complained  of  is  found  in  the  old 
question  of  taxation.  The  support  of  the  government  by  im 
ports,  regulated  to  the  revenue  standard,  is  presented  as  an 
abuse  tenfold  more  oppressive  than  all  the  tyranny  that  led 
to  the  revolution  of  seventy-six.  The  State  of  South  Caro 
lina  and  her  few  uncomplaining  sisters  are  represented  as 


15 

groaning  under  the  intolerable  burthen  of  paying  the  whole 
revenue  of  the  Federal  Government  and  getting  nothing  in 
return.  This  is  a  repetition  of  the  grief  of  1832,  when  the 
country  was  mystified  with  that  most  inscrutable  of  all  revela 
tions,  "the  forty  bale  theory," — and  which  so  far  prevailed 
in  the  philosophy  of  the  National  Councils,  as  finally  to 
secure  the  triumph  of  what  is  claimed  to  be  the  free  trade 
adjustment  of  1846, — which  adjustment,  it  seems  now,  is  no 
more  satisfactory  than  the  protective  system  it  displaced. 

It  is  also  worthy  of  note,  that  the  rabid  abolitionism  of 
England,  of  which  so  much  has  been  said  of  late  in  the  way 
of  denunciation,  and  which,  in  fact,  is  quite  as  mischievous 
to  Southern  peace  as  the  fanaticism  it  encourages  in  New 
England,  is  regarded  not  only  as  harmless,  but  even  as  not 
standing  in  the  way  of  a  most  cordial  alliance  with  Great 
Britain.  The  reviewer  actually  apologizes  for  this  little  in 
discretion  in  the  expected  ally,  and  treats  it  with  a  temper 
of  good  sense  which  might  be  commendably  adopted  in  regard 
to  the  same  transgression  at  home — "can  they  interfere  with 
our  institutions  ?  No.  They  can  but  make  us  angry." 

We  have  a  further  exposition  of  the  policy  of  disunion,  in 
the  imagination  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  composed  of 
Jamaica,  and  other  British  West  India  Islands,  and  Dem- 
erara — or,  I  suppose,  the  reviewer  meant  British  Guiana  on 
the  South  American  continent — to  which  may  now  be  added, 
as  a  more  recent  development  of  the  grandeur  of  the  con 
templated  republic,  the  conception  of  similar  accretions  em 
bracing  Cuba,  San  Domingo,  Mexico,  and  perhaps  Central 
America.  This  Confederacy,  if  we  mistake  not  the  signifi 
cance  of  many  ill-suppressed  hints  from  indiscreet  friends,  is 
to  be  rendered  still  more  magnificent  and  bountiful  of  bless 
ings,  still  more  attractive  to  the  contemplation  of  mankind 
by  the  aid  of  a  productive  commerce  in  African  slaves,  which 
seems  to  be  not  the  least  winning  feature  in  the  project. 

These  are  the  fervid  dreams  of  the  contrivers  of  disunion. 
For  such  fantasies  as  these,  our  great  Republic,  the  matured 


16 

product  of  so  much  thought  and  suffering,  is  to  be  rent  asunder, 
just  at  the  era  when  we  fondly  imagined  it  to  have  risen  to 
that  height  in  the  estimation  of  mankind  which  gave  it  an 
assured  position  among  the  proudest  empires  of  history.  For 
such  impracticable  conceits  as  these,  it  is  to  be  resolved  into 
discordant  fragments  whose  perpetual  jars  may  illustrate  the 
saddest  moral  of  blighted  hopes  the  world  has  ever  known ! 

We  might  bear  this  melancholy  lot  with  submissive  patience, 
as  the  chastisement  of  offended  Heaven,  if  we  could  believe 
there  was  any  cause  to  give  it  the  semblance  of  an  unavoid 
able  affliction:  if,  indeed,  it  did  not  spring  from  the  merest 
wantonness  of  a  temper  engendered  by  too  much  prosperity 
— or  ingratitude  to  God  for  blessings  too  profusely  bestowed 
to  be  valued. 

There  is  something  in  the  time  and,  jn  the  pretext  chosen 
for  this  great  work  of  mischief  that  peculiarly  provokes  re 
mark.  The  pretext  is  the  general  agitation  of  the  Southern 
mind  by  the  Northern  triumph  over  slavery.  What  quarrel 
there  is  that  grows  out  of  this,  is,  as  we  have  affirmed,  the 
just  and  proper  quarrel  of  the  Border  States.  That  quarrel 
does  not  necessarily,  and  most  probably  would  not,  lead  to  a 
breach  of  the  Union.  Firm  remonstrance  and  wise  counsel, 
aided  by  that  strong  attachment  to  the  government,  which, 
both  North  and  South,  lives  in  the  heart  of  millions  of  con 
servative  men  may  bring  a  truce, — which,  indeed,  is  already 
begun, — auspicious  to  reflection  and  the  settlement  of  all 
these  differences.  It  is  no  difficult  matter  in  this  breathing 
space,  when  considerate  citizens  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
honest  purpose  of  peace,  to  frame  an  adjustment  in  which 
future  repose  and  sufficient  pledge  against  the  renewal  of 
strife  may  be  obtained. 

It  is  just  at  such  a  time  as  this — in  the  interval  when  reason, 
judgment,  and  fraternal  affection  are  beginning  to  infuse  a 
benignant  influence  over  the  disturbed  mind  of  the  country — 
that  the  master-spirits  of  the  new  Confederacy  rush  to  the 
verge  of  the  gulf  and  drive  their  maddened  partisans  to  the 


17 

dreadful  leap  that  makes  recall  impossible.  They  pursue 
their  desperate  course  without  a  moment's  pause,  neither 
looking  back,  nor  taking  breath;  deaf  to  all  entreaty  of 
friends,  and  blind  to  all  sights  but  the  visions  that  rise  in  the 
distant  prospect.  There  they  behold  their  Arcadia,  with  its 
phantoms  of  untold  wealth,  its  free  ports,  its  untaxed  com 
merce,  its  illimitable  cotton  fields,  its  flattering  alliances,  its 
swarms  of  reinforcement  from  the  shores  of  Africa.  To  reach 
this  promised  land,  the  only  condition  of  the  enterprise  is  to 
press  forward  with  fiery  haste  and  outrun  the  speed  of  the 
peace-makers. 

In  1851,  Carolina  pursued  her  scheme  of  secession  as  reso 
lutely  as  she  does  at  this  day,  and  only  failed  through  the 
prudence  of  those  who  refused  to  accompany  her.  Her  pur 
pose  was  as  ripe  then,  her  hopes  as  high,  as  now.  Yet,  at 
that  epoch  there  was  no  fear  of  a  Republican  President.; 
There  was  then  no  question  of  intervention  or  non-interven- ; 
tion,  no  debate  of  equal  rights  in  the  territories,  no  Kansas, 
no  John  Brown.  In  the  absence  of  all  these,  she  had  nothing 
but  California  and  the  Compromise  to  disturb  her  repose. 
Yet  her  sufferings,  as  she  declared,  were  too  intolerable  to  be 
borne.  Let  her  speak  for  herself.  It  was  the  Union  she 
could  not  endure.  "  Welcome  as  summer  showers  to  the  sun- 
parched  earth" — (was  the  wail  of  her  Quarterly  of  that  time) — 
"welcome  as  heaven's  free  air  to  the  heart-sick  tenant  of  a 
dungeon,  would  come  to  us  the  voice  of  freedom,  the  word, 
the  deed,  which  would  tend  to  burst  our  bonds,  and  in  earnest 
faith  contribute  to  the  disruption  of  this  proud  fabric  (once 
beautiful,  but  now  rotten  to  the  core)  which,  under  the  name 
of  Union,  threatens  to  crush  us  beneath  its  unholy  power." 

We  cannot  believe  that  this  complicated  tissue  of  extrava 
gant  projects,  of  fancied  ills,  of  illusory  imaginations,  has 
taken  any  absolute  hold  upon  the  judgment  of  the  really 
sound  intellect  of  Carolina.  The  many  wise  and  patriotic 
men,  who  have  adorned  the  councils  of  the  nation  as  well  as 

2 


18 

of  the  State ;  the  many  whom  we  know  in  private  life,  dis 
tinguished  for  good  sense,  clear  perception  of  duty  and  the 
highest  order  of  ability,  forbid  the  belief  that,  when  this  ex 
traordinary  tempest  of  passion  shall  subside,  they  will  not  be 
at  hand  to  lead  back  the  State  to  the  path  into  which  her 
true  renown  and  her  best  interests  invite  her.  We  are  aware 
of  the  bewildering  force  of  popular  excitement  lashed  into 
fury  by  the  eloquence  and  the  arts  of  ambitious  leaders ;  how 
irresistibly  it  seizes  upon  impressible  and  ardent  natures,  how 
strangely  it,  sometimes,  overmasters  the  discretion  of  •  the 
wise.  But  we  also  know  that,  in  the  very  highest  rage  of  its 
sweep,  it  is  never  without  an  earnest  and  silent  dissent  in  the 
bosoms  of  grave  and  interested  spectators  who  dare  not,  or, 
in  the  hopelessness  of  a  hearing,  will  not  even  whisper  a  re 
monstrance  against  the  heady  current  of  the  multitude.  They 
abide  their  time.  We  believe  that  at  this  moment,  there  is 
in  Carolina  many  a  sad  and  watchful  citizen  anxiously  await 
ing  the  day  when  the  collapse  of  this  overstrained  ardor  shall 
present  an  occasion  to  speak  a  word  for  the  Union  and  for 
the  stricken  fortunes  of  the  State,  without  fear  of  that  stern 
and  angry  derision  which  now  compels  him  to  hold  his  peace. 
But  I  leave  this  topic  to  recur  to  the  question, — What  is 
the  proper  duty  of  the  Border  States,  looking  to  the  contin 
gencies  of  this  unhappy  strife? 

Obviously  they  cannot,  in  the  present  circumstances,  cast 
their  lot  with  Carolina.  They  cannot  adopt  either  her  pas 
sion  or  her  policy.  They  can  go  into  no  confederation  of  the 
lowland  States,  organized  on  the  principles  and  motives 
which  they  have  so  much  reason  to  fear  now  direct  and  stimu 
late  the  ambition  of  Carolina.  Then  let  them  say  so  at  once. 
Let  them  say  to  her  and  to  those  who  may  unite  their  for 
tunes  with  hers,  that,  deeply  deploring  a  separation  which 
they  would  make  every  just  or  generous  sacrifice  to  avert, — 
a  separation  that  is  forced  upon  them  by  a  profound  convic 
tion  that  it  is  the  only  expedient  left  open  to  them  to  guard 


19 

against  still  greater  evils — they  must   submit  to  it  as  the 
inevitable  destiny  of  their  position. 

The  Border  States  have  their  own  welfare  to  protect,  their 
own  injuries  to  redness.  They  believe  that  both  of  these  may 
be  accomplished  within  the  Union.  They  have  no  issue  with 
any  section  of  the  Union,  but  that  which  springs  from  the 
hostility  engendered  in  the  minds,  and  manifested  in  the 
public  action,  of  certain  portions  of  the  Free  States.  They 
have  no  hopes  or  fears  which  may  not  be  encouraged  or 
quieted  by  the  lawful  and  orderly  administration  of  the  con 
stitutional  powers  of  the  Federal  Government.  They  regard 
that  government  as  the  wisest  scheme  that  can  be  devised  for 
the  rule  of  this  nation.  They  can  never  abandon  it  until  ex\ 
perience  shall  convince  them  that  it  is  no  longer  capable  to  ' 
resist  its  perversion  by  faction,  or  to  protect  the  rights  of 
every  State  and  citizen. 

That  experience  they  have  not  yet  had. 

They  acknowledge  that  in  the  resolution  of  the  Union  into 
fragments,  which  may  be  the  possible  result  of  the  present 
disturbances,  a  contingency  may  be  presented  to  them  in 
which  they  will  be  compelled  to  choose  their  own  lot. 

Their  first  and  greatest  desire  is  to  avert  that  contingency 
and  to  restore  peace  and  universal  concord  among  the  whole 
sisterhood  of  States. 

Supposing  these  to  be  the  sentiments  of  the  Border  States, 
which,  from  every  authentic  indication,  I  cannot  doubt,  I 
venture  to  suggest  for  their  consideration, — 

The  expediency,  as  a  preliminary  measure,  of  holding,  at 
an  early  day,  an  informal  Conference  to  be  conducted  by  one 
or  more  distinguished  citizens  from  each  of  the  Border  States, 
and  from  such  of  the  other  Southern  States  as  may  be 
opposed  to  secession  in  the  present  state  of  affairs — these  to 
be  selected  by  the  Executive  of  each  State — for  the  purpose 
of  determining  on  a  course  of  joint  action  to  be  recommended 
to  the  adoption  of  the  whole  number. 


20 

To  such  a  conference  I  would  submit  the  following  propo 
sitions  : — 

1.  The  propriety  of  making  an  earnest  appeal  to  the  seced 
ing  States  to  retrace  their  steps  and  await  the  result  of  the 
measures  proposed  for  the  establishment  of  general  harmony : 
with  a  declaration  that  if  this  appeal  be  unsuccessful,  they, 
the  Border  States,  will  be  compelled  to  decline  entering  into 
a  Southern  Confederacy  as  now  proposed  by  South  Carolina 
and  her  allies  in  secession. 

2.  That  if  the  secession  of  South  Carolina  be  followed  by 
that  of  Alabama  or  any  other  State,  and  a  serious  breach  of  the 
Union  be  thus  established,  it  will  then  be  incumbent  on  the 
Border  States  and  the  other  Southern  States  concurring  with 
them,  to  take  measures  for  their  own  security,  by  demanding 
from  the  Free  States  a  revisal  of  all  topics  of  complaint  be 
tween  them  and  the  Slave  States,  and  the  adoption  of  such 
stipulations  on  both  sides  as  shall  be  satisfactory  to  each  for 
the  determination  and  protection  of  Southern  rights,  and  for 
the  restoration  of  harmony. 

These  stipulations  would,  of  course,  become  the  subject  of 
a  negotiation  with  the  Free  States :  a  negotiation  which  should 
be  conducted  in  a  frank  and  conciliatory  spirit,  through  such 
agencies  as  the  parties  may  arrange. 

I  think  it  would  be  just  to  both  parties,  and  would  be  likely 
to  meet  the  general  approval  of  the  country,  to  direct  these 
stipulations  to  the  following  points: — 

The  re-establishment  of  the  Missouri  line  and  its  extension 
to  the  Pacific,  as  an  easy,  practicable  mode  of  settling  the 
territorial  question  on  a  basis  "with  which  the  people  are 
familiar. 

The  adjustment  of  the  question  of  the  rendition  of  fugitive 
slaves : 

By  such  modifications  of  the  provisions  of  the  act  of  Con 
gress  on  that  subject,  as  shall  remove 'every  reasonable  objec 
tion  to  it,  compatible  with  its  efficient  adaptation  to  its  pur 
pose:  and  by  an  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  Free  States, 


21 

to  execute  it  in  good  faith,  and  to  repeal  all  laws  heretofore 
passed  with  a  view  to  its  obstruction: 

This,  coupled  with  an  engagement,  in  case  any  State  should 
find  itself  unable,  by  reason  of  the  repugnance  of  the  people 
to  the  execution  of  the  law,  to  deliver  up  the  fugitive — then, 
to  be  allowed  and  required,  by  way  of  alternative,  to  make  a 
just  indemnity  to  the  owner,  under  such  regulations  as  may 
be  devised. 

The  settlement  of  the  question  in  regard  to  the  admission 
of  New  States  on  the  foundation  at  present  adopted,  of  leav 
ing  each  territory  to  form  a  State  Constitution  in  accordance 
with  its  own  wishes. 

Finally,  a  pledge  to  be  given  by  the  Free  States  to  exert 
their  influence,  as  far  as  possible,  to  discourage  discussions  of 
slavery  in  a  tone  offensive  to  the  interests  of  the  slaveholding 
States;  and  to  endeavor  to  procure  legislative  enactments 
against  preparations  for  assault  on  the  peace  of  these  States, 
either  by  individuals  or  organized  bodies. 

If  there  be  any  of  the  provisions  proposed  in  these  stipula 
tions  which  may  require  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution — 
an  agreement  should  be  made  to  propose  and  support  it. 

3.  If  these  stipulations  can  be  obtained — then  the  Border 
States  and  concurring  States  of  the  South,  which  have  not 
seceded,  shall  retain  their  present  position  in  the  Union. 

But  in  the  adverse  event  of  these  stipulations,  or  satisfac 
tory  equivalents  for  them,  being  refused,  the  Border  States 
and  their  allies  of  the  South  who  may  be  disposed  to  act  with 
them,  will  be  forced  to  consider  the  Union  impracticable,  and 
to  organize  a  separate  Confederacy  of  the  Border  States,  with 
the  association  of  such  of  the  Southern  and  Free  States  as 
may  be  willing  to  accede  to  the  proposed  conditions. 

4.  When  this  programme  of  action,  or  such  substitute  for 
it  as  the  Conference  may  devise,  shall  be  adopted,  it  should 
be  submitted,  through  the  respective  Executives  of  the  States 
represented  in  the  Conference,  to  the  people  of  each,  to  be 
acted  upon  in  a  General  Convention  of  those  States,  called 


22 

by  the  direction  and  appointment  of  their  several  Legis 
latures. 

5.  That  pending  the  whole  course  of  this  proceeding,  the 
Border  States  and  those  concurring  with  them  shall  engage 
to  prevent,  by  all  the  means  in  their  power,  any  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  Federal  Government  or  of  any  State  or  States 
to  coerce  the  seceding  States  by  armed  force  into  submission. 

It  may  be  a  proper  subject  for  such  a  Conference,  as  I  have 
proposed,  to  consider  whether  it  would  not  be  useful,  in  any 
event — even  in  that  of  the  single  secession  of  South  Carolina, 
before  any  other  State  shall  have  followed  her — to  oifer  the 
Border  States  as  mediators  in  the  present  unhappy  differences, 
and  to  endeavor  to  procure,  for  the  benefit  of  all,  the  stipula 
tions  I  have  described  above,  or  some  other  pacific  arrange 
ment  of  the  same  character  and  object. 

If  the  Border  States  can  be  brought  into  combination  in 
the  manner  pointed  out  by  those  propositions,  it  is  easy  to 
perceive  that  they  must  immediately  become  the  masters  of 
the  position  from  which  the  whole  national  controversy  is  most 
likely  to  be  controlled.  They  will  not  only  hold  the  general 
peace  in  their  hands,  by  their  authority  to  persuade  an  absti 
nence  from  all  attempts  at  coercion;  but  they  will  also  be  re 
garded  and  respected  on  all  sides,  as  the  natural  and  appro 
priate  medium  through  which  the  settlement  of  all  differences 
is  eventually  to  be  obtained. 

By  taking  the  ground,  at  the  earliest  moment,  that  they 
cannot  unite  in  the  scheme  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and 
that,  if  separation  should,  at  last,  after  all  efforts  to  avert 
it,  be  imposed  upon  them  by  an  inexorable  necessity  from 
which  there  is  no  escape,  they  will  be  compelled  to  construct 
a  Confederacy  of  their  own,  in  which  they  may  be  able  to 
associate  with  themselves,  perhaps,  the  whole  body  of  the 
Middle  and  Western  States.  If  they,  the  Border  States,  shall 
firmly  and  dispassionately  take  this  ground,  such  a  determi 
nation  cannot  but  suggest  to  the  seceding  States  the  gravest 


23 

motive  to  pause  in  their  meditated  career,  and  to  await  an 
opportunity  for  further  conference  and  debate.  It  will  then 
be  for  these  States  to  inquire  with  more  deliberation  than  they 
have  yet  given  to  the  subject,  what  will  be  the  strength  and 
capacity  for  self-support  of  a  Confederacy  unsustained  by  the 
power  and  resource  of  such  communities  as  those  which  de 
cline  the  alliance.  When  that  question  conies  to  be  seriously 
discussed  by  them  it  will  present  many  new  and  momentous 
considerations  which  have  not  yet  been  canvassed. 

The  popular  notion  of  a  united  South  is  but  an  impracti 
cable  fancy.  A  united  South  is  a  more  uncertain  problem 
than  even  the  support  of  the  present  Union  under  the  diffi 
culties  that  now  surround  it. 

I  think  it  will  appear  to  any  careful  explorer  of  the  sub 
ject,  that  if  the  fifteen  States  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  were  to  enter  into  a  Confederacy  among  themselves,  such 
an  organization  would  speedily  prove  itself  to  be  more  pro 
ductive  of  dissension  than  the  present  Union  has  been  during 
the  last  twenty  years. 

The  policy  prefigured  by  the  seceding  States  is  in  many 
points  wholly  repugnant  to  the  views  and  interests  of  the  Bor 
der  States. 

These  latter  could  never  be  reconciled  to  be  made  accom 
plices  in  the  disgrace  and  guilt  of  a  restoration  of  the  slave- 
trade,  they  would  never  undertake  to  face  the  indignation  of 
Christendom  which  would  arise  upon  its  revival — much  less 
would  they  agree  to  involve  themselves  in  the  expense  and 
burthen  of  the  wars  that  it  would  inevitably  provoke. 

The  Border  States  would  scarcely  less  endure  the  commer 
cial  system,  so  often  and  conspicuously  insisted  on  by  Carolina 
and  her  comrades  in  secession,  by  which  free  ports  are  de 
manded  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  a  public  revenue 
resting  upon  direct  taxation. 

They  could  not  be  persuaded  into  that  expansive  policy  of 
annexation  and  conquest  which  has  dazzled  the  imagination 
of  the  South  and  tormented  the  ambition  of  its  people,  in 


24 

persistent   forays   upon    neighboring    States    and   perpetual 
schemes  of  acquisition. 

The  Border  States  exhibit  within  their  area  a  representa 
tion  of  almost  every  interest  and  pursuit  in  the  Union.  They 
are  thriving  and  vigorous  communities,  with  most  prolific  re 
sources  for  every  species  of  industry.  Their  agriculture  fur 
nishes  an  abundant  supply  of  the  sustenance  of  life,  with 
a  large  surplus  for  external  commerce.  The  region  occupied 
by  these  States  embraces  also  a  wide  area  adapted  to  the  cul 
ture  of  hemp  and  flax,  tobacco  and  cotton.  It  abounds  in 
mineral  wealth,  in  water  power,  in  pasturage,  in  cattle,  sheep, 
horses, — in  all  the  elements  of  the  most  diversified  manufac 
turing  industry.  Its  healtful  climate,  its  robust  population, 
and  its  cheap  means  of  livelihood  are  singularly  favorable  to 
the  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  mechanic  arts,  the  multipli 
cation  of  villages,  and  the  gradual  increase  of  thrifty  and 
industrious  workmen  in  every  department  of  handicraft — in 
variably  the  best  indications  of  the  progress  of  a  State  to 
wealth  and  power. 

Beginning  at  the  Cities  of  Baltimore,  Richmond  and  Nor 
folk  on  the  Atlantic,  and  extending  over  a  broad  domain 
studded  with  flourishing  inland  towns,  it  ends  at  the  City  of 
St.  Louis  on  the  Missouri,  presenting  throughout  the  series 
every  facility  for  a  wide  and  profitable  commerce,  already 
furnished  with  railroads,  canals,  and  navigable  rivers. 

Here  are  all  the  elements  necessary  to  the  organization  of 
the  polity  of  a  first-class  power.  In  extent  of  territory,  in 
resource,  in  population,  it  may  take  rank  among  the  master 
States  which,  in  any  new  combinations  of  the  fragments  of 
our  once  happy  Union,  broken  by  the  madness  of  faction, 
may  hereafter  be  gathered  from  the  wreck. 

In  the  worst  event  that  may  happen,  therefore,  greatly  as 
every  old-fashioned  lover  of  the  Union  may  deplore  the  neces 
sity  for  such  a  work,  here  are  the  ready  materials  for  the  con 
struction  of  a  new  nation  able  to  protect  the  welfare  of  its 
people,  secure  their  peaceful  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  furnish 


25 

a  safe  refuge  to  all  who  may  flee  to  it  to  escape  the  disorders 
and  distractions  of  the  time. 

It  is  a  sad  speculation  which  forces  us  to  the  computation 
of  the  resources  of  any  section  of  our  present  Union,  with  a 
view  to  the  exhibition  of  its  capacity  for  independent  exist 
ence;  but  when  the  vision  of  a  united  South  is  conjured  up  to 
our  contemplation,  as  a  possible  or  impending  reality,  we  are 
compelled  to  face  and  question  it. 

I  have  therefore  looked  at  the  character  of  the  Border 
States,  to  show  how  incompatible  their  interests  are  likely  to 
prove  with  the  policy  which  is  deemed  essential  to  other 
sections  of  the  South.  It  must  be  apparent  from  even  this 
brief  examination,  that  communities  of  such  different  pursuits, 
and  marked  by  such  variant  conditions,  would  scarcely  find,  in 
political  alliance  with  the  projected  Southern  Confederacy, 
that  harmony  of  interests  which  is  essential  to  the  prosperity 
of  both. 

The  four  or  five  States  now  reputed  to  be  nfost  likely  to 
enter  into  compact  with  Carolina  may  be  described  as  chiefly 
representing  one  vast  cotton  field.  The  whole  region  embraced 
by  them  is,  in  all  physical  quality,  if  we  except  Georgia, 
thoroughly  homogeneous.  Its  business  is  planting.  It  has  no 
mechanic  art  and  but  few  manufactures.  Its  rural  inhabitants 
are  divided  between  numerous  proprietors  of  the  soil  and  their 
slaves — the  proprietors,  in  great  degree,  migratory,  the  slaves 
stationary — thus  necessarily  creating,  in  many  locations,  a 
great  preponderance  of  slave  population.  Its  productions  are 
singularly  valuable  as  one  of  the  most  indispensable  wants  of 
mankind,  and  readily  exchangeable  into  money.  This  ex 
change  is  made  through  an  active  factorage  that  has  built  up 
prosperous  cities  and  created  a  large  commerce.  So  far  as 
this  commerce  is  concerned  with  the  planting  region,  it  is  re 
duced  into  a  simple  system  of  transactions  in  the  great  staple 
of  the  country — a  commerce  without  variety  of  resource,  and 
too  dependent  upon  the  accidents  of  a  single  product  and  the 
vicissitudes  of  season,  to  support  a  costly  mercantile  marine, 


26 

and  which  is  therefore  compelled  to  seek  its  transportation 
from  foreign  and  friendly  sources.  Such  a  commerce,  we  must 
perceive,  is  peculiarly  exposed,  not  only  to  damage,  but  utter 
overthrow  by  the  occurrence  of  war.  In  its  overthrow,  the 
whole  resource  of  the  country  is  destroyed.  This  is  the  com 
mon  and  inevitable  weakness  of  all  merely  agricultural  coun 
tries. 

If  Louisiana,  shaken  from  her  balance  by  the  fervor  of  the 
moment,  could  be  persuaded  to  join  this  Confederacy,  she 
would  contribute,  it  is  true,  not  only  another  resource  in  her 
product  of  sugar,  but  a  great  commercial  mart  of  command 
ing  importance  in  the  trade  of  the  world.  It  might  neverthe 
less  be  questioned  whether  even  so  valuable  an  acquisition  as 
this  would,  in  the  end,  turn  out  to  be  a  permanent  accession  of 
strength.  The  prosperity  of  the  City  of  New  Orleans  is  so 
essentially  united  with  the  fortunes  of  the  West — in  fact,  so 
entirely  dependent  upon  them — as  to  suggest  many  possibili 
ties  of  collision,  both  on  the  part  of  the  city  and  State,  with 
the  policy  of  the  government  to  whose  control  they  would 
have  surrendered  themselves.  Indeed,  with  the  obvious  mo 
tives  for  hesitation,  which  must  occur  to  the  intelligent  judg 
ment  of  Louisiana,  against  the  wisdom  of  entering  into  the 
proposed  Confederacy,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  presumed  that  she 
may  be  seduced,  even  by  the  passionate  solicitations  of  her 
present  anger  against  Northern  aggression,  into  a  measure,  in 
its  best  aspect,  so  doubtful ;  in  its  apparent  probabilities,  so 
rash. 

She  cannot  slight  the  consideration  that  the  adverse  pos 
session  of  a  great  seat  of  trade  at  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi  may  furnish  in  the  future,  as  it  has  done  in  the  past,  a 
fruitful  source  of  quarrel  between  the  power  that  holds  it  and 
the  numerous  commonwealths  upon  the  banks  of  the  river  and 
its  tributaries,  which  now  claim  its  free  and  uninterrupted  use, 
together  with  its  depots,  at  all  times  and  in  all  contingencies ; 
that  there  is  no  form  of  agreement  or  treaty  which  can  afford 
complete  and  invariable  protection  to  this  enjoyment ;  none 


27 

that  would  probably  be  regarded  as  an  adequate  equivalent 
for  the  surrender  of  the  right  which  has  been  acquired  by 
purchase  out  of  the  common  treasure,  for  the  benefit  of  these 
claimants. 

Will  not  these  reflections  suggest  a  pregnant  inquiry 
whether  the  defence  of  this  mart  by  a  confederacy  foreign  to 
the  claimants  may  not  prove  a  charge  too  costly  to  be  com 
pensated  even  by  the  unquestionably  great  advantages  of  such 
a  possession  ?  Does  it  presignify  no  danger  that,  in  the  vex 
atious  emergencies  of  future  years,  there  may  be  provoked  a 
new  motive  in  Louisiana,  for  secession  from  a  confederacy  that 
is  to  be  built  upon  a  full  recognition  of  that  doctrine  ?  In  view 
of  these  possibilities  and  many  others  that  experience  may 
bring  to  light,  may  we  not  assume  that  Louisiana  will  pru 
dently  weigh  the  question  of  her  own  permanent  peace  and 
prosperity  before  she  takes  the  step  to  which  she  is  now  in 
vited?  Will  it  not  be  equally  well  for  the  new  Confederacy  to 
deliberate  upon  the  point  whether  such  a  possession  may  not 
be  as  much  a  source  of  weakness  as  of  strength  ? 

Looking  back  to  the  elements — with  that  notable  exception 
to  which  I  have  already  adverted — which  are  expected  to 
compose  this  Confederacy ;  to  its  people  and  pursuits,  and  the 
peculiar  character  of  a  large  portion  of  its  population ;  to  its 
deficiency  in  mechanic  art,  its  defective  supply  of  the  staff  of 
life ;  to  the  influence  of  its  climate ;  to  its  entire  destitution 
of  the  means  to  build  and  man  ships,  and  to  many  other  dis 
abilities  which  will  occur  in  any  review  of  its  resources,  we 
cannot  but  think  that  this  fancied  New  Atlantis,  which  has  so 
possessed  the  imagination  of  its  votaries,  will,  upon  trial, 
prove  itself  to  be  the  most  defenceless,  and,  in  a  significant 
sense,  the  weakest  of  independent  nations. 

It  may  have  some  hope  of  rising  above  this  condition  by 
the  accession  of  the  State  of  Georgia.  If  that  vigorous  com 
monwealth,  in  an  hour  of  blindness  to  its  own  happy  destiny 
in  this  Union,  should  fall  into  the  fatal  error  of  joining  in  this 
alliance,  it  will  be,  as  every  one  must  admit,  a  constituent  of 


28 

real  strength  in  the  Confederacy.  Georgia  would  then  arise 
to  the  unenviable  supremacy  of  being  the  only  solid  and 
trusty  support  of  the  whole  fabric.  She  has  already,  under 
the  auspices  of  a  Union  which  has  conferred  nothing  but 
blessings  upon  her,  advanced  beyond  all  her  compeers  of  the 
South,  to  the  position  of  a  truly  powerful  and  commanding 
commonwealth.  Surely,  before  she  takes  this  fatal  step,  she 
will  meditate  over  the  prosperity  of  her  admirable  effort  in  the 
establishment  of  manufactures,  her  multiplying  towns  and  vil 
lages,  her  fertile  and  healthy  uplands,  her  rapid  growth  in 
peaceful  arts,  and  her  thousand  capabilities  of  ever-varied  in 
dustry,  and  anxiously  and  coolly  weigh  the  question,  whether 
she  should  put  all  these  in  jeopardy  by  submitting  them  to  the 
domination  of  such  a  policy  as  the  new  Confederacy  will  offer 
her.  But  if,  in  full  view  of  these  admonitions,  she  chooses  to 
be  led  into  the  first  movement  toward  this  combination,  may 
we  not  hope  that  in  a  calmer  moment  than  the  present  she  will 
retrace  her  steps,  and  once  more  place  her  better  destiny  under 
the  guardianship  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes — the  only  symbol 
worthy  of  her  fortunes  and  her  hopes  ? 

Georgia  has  not  yet  left  us.  Let  us  trust  to  the  clear  judg 
ment  and  earnest  patriotism  of  her  hosts  of  friends  to  the 
Union,  and  to  the  eloquent  and  manly  counsel  of  her  sons, 
that  she  will  move  with  more  deliberate  pace,  and  in  company 
with  more  temperate  comrades,  along  the  path  of  conciliation 
and  trial,  before  she  ventures  to  lend  a  hand  to  the  demolition 
of  the  government  under  which  she  has  grown  to  her  present 
stature.  And  if  that  day  of  destruction  must  ever  come,  let 
her  be  found  among  the  ruins,  with  kindred  congenial  to  her 
own  nature,  employed  in  the  task  of  gathering  the  fragments 
of  our  broken  Union  together  for  reconstruction  and  renewal 
of  its  ancient  harmony. 

Texas  is  looked  to  as  a  component  of  the  new  Confederacy. 
Her  lot,  if  dissolution  be  a  settled  fact,  and  a  general  sauve 
quipeut  should  compel  her  to  decide  upon  her  whereabout,  I 
presume,  would  be  once  more  to  raise  her  banner  of  the  Lone 


29 


V 


Star.  She  is  a  young  nation,  quite  able  to  take  care  of  her 
self.  She  exists  as  a  portion  of  the  American  Union  by  a 
simple  resolution  of  Congress.  A  dissolution  repeals  that  act 
and  remits  her  to  her  original  position.  She  becomes  again 
a  detached  and  independent  power ;  and,  in  that  event,  may 
wisely  judge  it  to  be  her  true  policy  to  accept  the  position  and 
maintain  it.  We  have  yet  no  proof  that  she  has  so  soon  be 
come  weary  of  the  Union  which,  but  a  few  years  gone  by,  she 
so  eagerly  sought,  and  which  has,  in  that  short  interval,  heaped 
almost  fabulous  treasures  into  her  lap.  On  the  contrary,  what 
proof  we  have  presents  her  in  the  attitude  of  a  hopeful  friend 
of  peace.  We  pray  that  she  may  prove  steadfast  to  the 
admonitions  of  the  wise  and  true-hearted  hero  whom  she  has 
honored  with  the  highest  gifts  she  has  had  to  bestow ! 

This  is  a  brief  survey  of  the  materials  which,  in  the  sad 
event  of  the  disruption  of  our  Confederacy,  many  suppose 
may  be  moulded  into  a  united  South.  It  exhibits  two  divi 
sions  of  the  present  slaveholding  States — separate,  not  hos 
tile — but  divided  from  each  other  by  nature  and  incompatible 
conditions,  impossible  to  be  brought  into  harmonious  alliance 
under  any  system  of  political  organization  founded  upon  the 
basis  of  what  are  deemed  the  essential  and  peculiar  interests 
of  either. 

I  have  endeavored  to  demonstrate  my  conviction  that  with 
whatever  caution  or  friendly  spirit  of  compromise  they  might 
begin  the  experiment  of  Confederation,  they  would  infallibly 
lapse  into  antagonisms  through  the  collision  of  which  their 
association  would  soon  be  reduced  to  a  mere  political  form,  as 
impotent  to  hold  them  together  as  our  present  Union  is  likely 
to  prove  under  the  doctrines  which  one  of  the  divisions  I  have 
mentioned  above  has  already  proclaimed  and  adopted  as  the 
indispensable  condition  of  its  alliance. 

Among  many  topics  of  discussion  which  would  arise  in  the 
course  of  that  experiment,  there  is  one  which  would  certainly 
loom  into  fearful  proportions  as  a  source  of  constantly  increas 
ing  discontent.  It  is  exemplified  in  our  present  history,  and 


30 

/ 

would  find  even  a  more  acrimonious  revival  in  the  progress  of 

the  supposed  new  alliance. 

The  tendency  of  nearly  all — perhaps  I  might  say  of  the 
whole — of  the  Border  States,  in  considerable  portions  or  sec 
tions  of  each,  must  be  under  any  form  of  organization — 
whether  in  the  present  Union  or  out  of  it ;  whether  pursuing 
their  own  welfare  united  with  the  whole  South,  or  in  a  Con 
federacy  of  their  own — toward  the  increase  of  free  labor  by 
immigration  and  settlement,  and  to  a  correlative  gradual 
diminution  of  slave  labor.  That  process  is  marked  out  for 
them  in  the  future,  as  it  has  been  in  the  past,  by  the  irre 
sistible  law  of  their  nature.  It  is  an  onward  force  which 
derives  its  vigor  from  the  stimulus  of  interest,  and  is  both 
the  issue  and  the  exponent  of  the  prosperity  of  the  community 
itself.  In  the  grain-growing  portions  of  these  States,  this 
process  will  be  more  rapid;  but,  even  in  the  planting  por 
tions,  though  slower  and  perhaps  for  a  time  imperceptible, 
its  influences  will  be  felt.  As  population  increases  and  the 
competition  of  labor  becomes  more  intense,  these  States  must 
expect  a  continuance  of  the  same  partial  and  progressive 
i  mastery  of  free  over  slave  labor  which  is  now  visible  in  many 
.  local  divisions  of  their  own  area,  and  which  has  been  slowly 
!  and  steadily  converting  slave  into  free  States  from  the  date 
of  the  Revolution  down  to  the  present  time.  Maryland, 
portions  of  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri  are  moving 
onward  to  the  final  condition — remote  but  certain — of  free 
labor  communities.  That  movement  may  be  greatly  acceler 
ated  by  extrinsic  forces.  The  enhancement  of  the  value  of 
slaves  draws  this  labor  from  a  less  productive  to  a  more  pro 
ductive  region — from  the  wheat  to  the  cotton  field.  The 
depreciation  of  the  value  has,  to  some  extent,  a  similar 
effect.  By  impoverishing  the  owner,  it  compels  a  necessity 
to  sell,  and  the  purchaser  is  most  likely  to  be  the  agent  or 
factor  of  the  cotton  planter.  In  either  case  the  gradual  de 
crease  of  slavery  in  the  farming  region — I  use  this  designa 
tion  in  opposition  to  the  planting — is  the  constant  result. 


31 

The  establishment  of  the  slave-trade  would  not  be  without 
its  effect  in  the  same  direction.  It  would  create  disgust  in 
many  against  slavery  itself,  and  thus  lead  to  emancipation. I 
These  contingencies  are  entitled  to  consideration  as  causes 
which,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  may  operate  more  or  less  actively 
upon  the  interests,  habits,  and  sentiments  of  the  Border 
States  to  produce  not  only  a  sharp  diversity  of  views  and 
policy,  but  also  dissension  and  conflict  between  them  and 
other  sections  of  the  South.  They  would  grow  to  be  reck 
oned  as  unfriendly  to  the  South,  or,  in  the  current  phrase  of 
of  our  day,  "unsound"  on  the  question  of  Southern  insti 
tutions.  They  would  thus  be  regarded  with  a  growing  dis 
like,  and,  in  the  end,  put  to  the  ban  of  extreme  Southern 
opinion,  under  the  odious  and  comprehensive  appellation  of 
abolitionists. 

Not  in  this  question  alone  would  be  found  a  source  of 
jealousy  and  division.  Political  ambition  would  contrive 
many  pretexts  for  quarrel,  and  parties  would  vent  their 
discontents  in  threats  of  secession  and  new  combinations. 
Disunion  would  find  a  terrible  precedent  in  the  example  of 
the  present  time,  and  grow  to  be  the  familiar  and  frequent 
threat,  and  often  the  actual  deed  of  disappointed  States. 
Mr.  Jefferson  long  ago  described  this  very  condition  of 
things.  His  words  now  reach  us  with  solemn  warning,  as 
counsels  sent  to  their  erring  sons  from  the  sanctuary  of  our 
departed  fathers. 

"  In  every  free  and  deliberating  society,"  he  says,  in  a  letter  to 
John  Taylor,  in  the  year  1798,  "there  must,  from  the  nature  of 
man,  be  opposite  parties  and  violent  discussions  and  discords; 
and  one  of  these,  for  the  most  part,  must  prevail  over  the  other 
for  a  longer  or  shorter  time.  Perhaps  this  party  division  is 
necessary  to  induce  each  to  watch  and  delate  to  the  people  the 
proceedings  of  the  other.  But  if,  on  a  temporary  superiority  of 
the  one  party,  the  other  is  to  resort  to  a  scission  of  the  Union, 
no  Federal  Government  can  ever  exist.  If  to  rid  ourselves  of 
the  present  rule  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  we  break  the 
Union,  will  the  evil  stop  there  ?  Suppose  the  New  England 
States  alone  cut  off,  will  our  natures  be  changed?  Are  we  not 


32 

men  still,  to  the  South  of  that,  with  all  the  passions  of  men  ? 
Immediately  we  shall  see  a  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  party  arise 
in  the  residuary  confederacy,  and  the  public  mind  will  be  dis 
tracted  with  the  same  party  spirit.  What  a  game,  too,  will  one 
party  have  in  their  hands,  by  eternally  threatening  each  other, 
and  unless  they  do  so  and  so,  they  will  join  their  Northern  neigh 
bors  !  If  we  reduce  our  Union  to  Virginia  and  North  Carolina, 
immediately  the  conflict  will  be  established  between  the  represent 
atives  of  these  two  States,  and  they  will  end  by  breaking  into 
their  simple  units.  Seeing,  therefore,  that  an  association  of  men 
who  will  not  quarrel  with  one  another,  is  a  thing  that  never  yet 
existed,  from  the  greatest  confederacy  of  nations  down  to  a  town 
meeting  or  a  vestry;  seeing  that  we  must  have  somebody  to 
quarrel  with,  I  had  rather  keep  our  New  England  associates  for 
that  purpose  than  to  see  our  bickerings  transferred  to  others. 

****** 

A  little  patience,  and  we  shall  see  the  reign  of  witches  pass  over, 
their  spells  dissolved,  and  the  people  recovering  tlteir  true  sight, 
restoring  their  government  to  its  true  principles." 

We  may  commend  both  the  philosophy  of  these  extracts 
and  the  prophecy  with  which  they  end,  to  the  sober  medita 
tion  of  all  who  think  the  evils  of  the  day  incurable. 

It  is  proper  for  me  to  say  here  that  the  propositions  I  have 
submitted  as  the  foundation  of  a  settlement,  to  be  urged  by 
the  Border  States,  are  but  selections  from  the  many  sugges 
tions  which  have  in  various  forms  been  lately  thrown  before 
the  public.  I  have  selected  these,  not  only  because  I  think 
them  altogether  just,  in  view  of  the  rational  demands  which 
both  North  and  South  are  entitled  to  make  upon  each  other, 
but  also  because  they  seem  to  have  met  a  larger  concurrence 
from  the  conservative  portions  of  the  people,  on  both  sides, 
than  any  others  that  have  been  brought  into  discussion.  A 
temperate  debate  of  these  propositions  and  their  recommend 
ation  by  the  authority  of  a  grave  and  influential  convention 
of  eminent  citizens  representing  the  moderate  conservative 
opinion  and  the  most  important  interests  of  the  country — 
which  I  do  not  doubt  greatly  preponderate  in  both  sections, 
and  are  quite  able  to  outweigh  and  overmaster  all  the  leaders 
and  followers  of  the  ultraisms  of  both — would,  it  strikes  me, 


33 

command,  at  once,  the  assent  of  the  most  authoritative  mass  of 
citizens,  and  gradually  bring  into  submission,  if  not  concur 
rence,  the  whole  disturbing  force  which  now  distracts  the 
public  peace. 

The  advantage  which  the  Border  States  hold  in  this  contro 
versy  is  very  manifest.  As  I  have  said  before,  they  are  the 
masters  of  the  position  and  may  control  the  events  of  the 
future.  It  is  in  their  power  to  isolate  those  portions  of  the 
Union  which  are  most  violent  and  reckless  in  driving  the 
country  to  extremes,  and  thus  give  them  occasion  to  perceive 
that  they  are  to  find  no  support  out  of  the  circle  of  their  own 
impetuous  allies.  They  have,  also,  the  power  to  give,  even 
to  these,  a  strong  assurance  that  every  fair  and  just  com 
plaint  they  are  entitled  to  make  shall  be  redressed  by  satis 
factory  arrangements  which  they,  the  Border  States,  will 
demand,  and  will  most  assuredly  procure.  The  North  will 
listen  to  their  demands  and  meet  them  in  honorable  confer 
ence,  with  a  temper  of  conciliation  which  it  would  be  hope 
less  to  expect  from  a  conference  representing  the  more  excited 
and  exacting  portions  of  the  South.  We  have  proof  of  this 
temper  furnished  every  day  in  the  Northern  journals.  The 
abolitionists  proper,  the  firebrands  of  the  North,  have  lost 
their  influence  and  would  have  no  share  in  any  movement 
toward  a  settlement.  The  truth  is,  that  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  the  people  of  the  Free  States  are  awakened  to  a 
new  perception  of  the  danger  which  has  been  produced  by 
the  violent  assaults  of  the  North  upon  the  South,  in  which 
they  themselves  have  more  or  less  participated  without  dream 
ing  of  the  bitter  injuries  they  were  inflicting  upon  the  public 
peace  and  the  integrity  of  the  Union.  They  have  listened  to 
evil  counselors  and  have  been  led  away  by  the  inflammatory 
philosophies  of  their  own  ambitious  leaders.  They  see  this 
now,  although  they  have  not  seen  it  before;  and  in  this 
awakening  of  their  minds  to  the  reality  of  the  crisis,  they  are 
ready  and  willing  to  make  every  proper  concession  for  the 

3 


34 

restoration  of  present  tranquillity  and  for  protection  against 
future  disturbance.  They  are  thus  fortunately  able  and 
well  inclined  to  drop,  henceforth  and  forever,  this  offensive 
and  detestable  agitation  of  slavery,  which  they  now  perceive 
to  be  a  real  and  dangerous  grievance. 

Our  purpose  should  be  to  negotiate  with  this  class  of  men. 
It  can  be  only  effectually  done  by  the  Border  States.  A 
General  Convention  of  all  the  States  would,  inevitably,  pro 
duce  more  bickering  and  confusion  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs.  Even  a  General  Convention,  as  has  been  proposed, 
of  all  the  Southern  States,  with  a  view  to  their  own  course  of 
proceeding,  would  be  attended  with  the  same  difficulties.  It 
would  run  the  risk  of  being  converted  into  a  theatre  of  angry 
debate  upon  extreme  propositions,  and  would  be  as  likely,  as 
the  Charleston  Convention  in  May,  to  be  broken  up  by  the 
secession  of  discontented  members  who  could  not  get  all  they 
asked.  A  Convention  of  the  Border  States  would  have  no 
difficulty  of  this  kind.  They  would  be  harmonious,  just  and 
reasonable  in  their  views,  and  firm  in  meeting  the  real  evils  of 
the  time,  by  offering  and  demanding  a  full  and  adequate 
remedy  for  them. 

This  would  be  their  position  in  the  first  efforts  toward 
peace  and  permanent  security.  If  they  succeed  in  obtaining 
a  just  settlement;  the  seceding  States  could  not  resist  the 
necessity  of  acquiescing  in  such  a  settlement,  and  of  returning 
to  the  Union.  As  they  calmed  down  into  a  cooler  mood,  and 
brought  their  unclouded  judgment  to  a  consideration  of  the 
case,  they  would  cordially  approve  and  support  the  settlement, 
and  the  whole  country  would  thus  receive  an  incalculable 
benefit  from  the  present  commotion.  It  would  be  a  great  and 
happy  purification  of  the  morale  of  the  country,  and  we 
should  all  rejoice  that  the  crisis  has  been  turned  to  such  good 
account. 

But  if  this  service,  proffered  by  the  Border  States,  should 
unhappily  fail  to  produce  these  results,  in  this  first  stage  of 
the  process  of  pacification,  they  would  still  occupy  a  ground 


O  f 

GO 


not  less  important  and  beneficial  in  the  second  and  more  re 
mote  phase  of  the  quarrel. 

Supposing  a  disintegration  of  the  Union,  notwithstanding 
all  efforts  to  prevent  it,  be  forced  upon  us  by  the  obstinacy 
and  impracticability  of  parties  on  each  side — the  case  would 
still  be  far  from  hopeless.  The  Border  States,  in  that  event, 
would  form,  in  self-defence,  a  Confederacy  of  their  own, 
which  would  serve  as  a  centre  of  reinforcement  for  the  recon 
struction  of  the  Union.  The  attraction  of  interest  and  good 
brotherhood  would  instantly  become  effective  to  draw  to  this 
nucleus,  one  by  one,  every  State  in  the  Confederacy.  A 
beneficent  power  of  gravitation  would  work  with  irresistible 
energy  in  bringing  back  the  dislocated  fragments.  New  York, 
!New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  would  be  among  the  first  to  fall 
in.  Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio,  perhaps  all  the  Western  States, 
would  be  unable  to  resist  the  tendency  toward  this  centre, 
and  would  come  into  cohesion  with  an  utter  abjuration  of  all 
those  fancies  and  follies  which  have  been  engendered  by  the 
slavery  question.  And  when  it  was  seen  that  North  and 
South  could  thus  unite  on  a  basis  perfectly  free  from  the  dis 
turbance  of  these  old  questions,  the  more  moderate  of  the 
seceding  States — Georgia  especially,  if  she  be  one  of  them — 
would  come  to  the  acknowledgment  that  their  true  interests 
directed  them  to  the  same  reunion.  Last  of  all,  the  most 
ultra  States  of  the  secession  movement  would  obey  the  same 
law  of  attraction,  and,  once  more,  after  a  lapse  of  weary  trial 
and  profitable  experience,  we  should  see  the  Union  recon 
structed  by  the  healthful  agency  of  the  Border  States. 

Those  who  have  carefully  noted  the  progress  of  political 
opinion  for  more  than  thirty  years  past,  and  marked  the 
tendency  of  its  teaching,  toward  the  adoption  of  certain 
distinctive  theories  of  government  having  reference  to  sup 
posed  geographical  interests,  have  been  able  to  predict  the 
certainty  of  a  convulsion  that,  sooner  or  later,  would  present 
an  inevitable  necessity  for  a  reconstruction,  or,  at  least,  a  re- 


36 

consideration  and  explicit  determination,  of  the  principles 
upon  which  the  Union  is  to  be  preserved. 

The  present  ferment  is  but  the  verification  of  this  pre 
diction. 

If  wisely  handled,  as  I  have  shown,  it  may  be  productive 
of  inestimable  good.  If  allowed  to  solve  its  problem  under 
the  guidance  of  the  fierce  instincts  and  rash  counsels  of  those 
who  have  first  assumed  its  direction,  it  will  become  the  source 
of  an  "Iliad  of  woes" — not  to  the  present  generation  alone, 
but  to  many  generations  hereafter. 

The  time  and  the  occasion,  therefore,  demand  the  most 
free  and  full  examination  of  the  causes,  open  and  concealed, 
which  are  shaking  the  loyalty  of  the  people  and  turning  men's 
thoughts  toward  disunion. 

I  have  endeavored  in  these  pages  to  demonstrate  that  there 
are  other  and  more  secret  discontents  in  our  condition  than 
those  which  grow  out  of  the  slavery  question. 

While  we  painfully  perceive  and  feel  that  the  action  of  the 
Northern  States  on  that  question,  and,  still  more,  the  wicked 
fanaticism  of  individuals  and  sects  in  preaching  hostility  to 
the  peace  of  the  South,  have  kindled  in  the  mind  of  the 
whole  population  of  this  division  of  the  United  States  a  pro 
found  and  just  indignation  against  this  wanton  spirit  of  aggres 
sion  which,  if  not  arrested,  we  have  long  been  conscious, 
would  surely  lead  to  a  rupture  of  the  Union, — it  is  also  a 
matter  of  deep  concern  that  we  should  apprehend  and  notice 
the  fact  that  there  are  other  disturbing  forces  operating  upon 
sections  of  the  South — perhaps  in  some  degree  owing  their 
vitality  to  the  alienation  produced  by  the  slavery  agitation, 
but  now  apart  from  it  and  looking  to  other  subjects, — which 
have  grown  to  be  seriously  hostile  to  the  harmony  of  our 
united  system  of  government.  My  aim  has  been  to  bring 
these  into  view,  as  well  as  the  more  pervading  topic  of  dis 
content,  in  order  that,  in  the  attempt  to  restore  peace  and 
confidence,  which  is  practicable  through  the  settlement  of  the 
slavery  dispute,  we  may  not  be  misled  by  the  clamor  of  those 


37 

to  whom  such  a  settlement  would  be  but  the  frustration  of  a 
cherished  design.  The  dissatisfaction  of  this  class  of  agita 
tors  must  be  left  to  the  cure  of  time.  There  is  no  mode  of 
treating  it  but  to  let  it  alone,  consigning  it  to  the  good  sense 
and  right  reason  which  it  has  to  encounter  at  home. 

It  will,  doubtless,  be  received  as  a  bold  assertion,  when  I 
say  that  the  slavery  question,  as  one  for  political  cognizance 
in  the  United  States,  presents  the  most  futile  subject  for 
legislation  or  administrative  policy,  perhaps,  within  the 
whole  range  of  measures  consigned  to  the  notice  of  govern 
ment. 

It  cannot  be  controverted  that  the  whole  power  of  the 
Federal  Government  is  inadequate  to  change  the  condition  of 
a  single  slave  within  any  State  of  the  Union.  Nor  can  any 
combination  of  party,  with  all  the  aids  which  the  apparatus  of 
government  may  afford,  with  all  the  temper  of  proscription 
and  intolerance  that  fanatical  zeal  may  beget,  with  all  the 
concurrence  of  sectional  State  legislation,  ever  be  able  to 
make  a  successful  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  smallest  of 
the  Slave  States.  Such  an  attempt  would  meet  the  instant 
resistance  not  only  of  the  whole  circle  of  those  States,  but 
with  the  resistance  of  three-fourths  of  the  people  of  the  whole 
country.  That  parties  and  individuals  may  threaten  irre 
pressible  conflicts  and  undying  hostility,  is  true.  But,  as  to 
acting  upon  such  threats,  the  Constitution  renders  them  as 
powerless  as  children. 

And  in  regard  to  slavery  in  the  territories — although  there 
may  be  ground  on  which  the  Government'  may  claim  to  con 
trol  it,  I  affirm  that,  as  a  practicable  policy,  no  exercise  of 
that  power,  in  the  present  actual  condition  of  the  domain 
possessed  by  the  nation,  can  either  force  the  establishment  of 
slavery  into  a  territory  ungenial  to  it,  nor  keep  it  out  of  one 
adapted  to  its  employment.  I  mean,  that  there  is  no  motive 
of  interest  to  take  slavery,  as  a  permanent  thing,  to  a  region 
where  it  is  unproductive ;  nor  any  motive,  either  political  or 
philanthropic,  to  forbid  its  transfer  to  the  region  where  it  is 


38 

essential  to  the  interests  of  production.  At  this  time  we 
have  no  territory  in  which  there  is  any  possibility  of  raising 
the  question,  but  if  we  should  obtain  one  in  a  planting  region, 
it  would  be  settled  from  the  population  of  the  slaveholding 
States  without  a  notable  opposition  from  any  section  of  the 
Union. 

The  agitation  of  slavery,  therefore,  notwithstanding  its 
engrossment  of  the  country  and  the  odious  prominence  it  has 
assumed,  is,  after  all,  but  a  parade  of  idle  and  mischievous 
debate.  It  lives  upon  the  incessant  ministration  of  stimu 
lants  supplied  by  small  declaimers  in  quest  of  notoriety.  It 
is,  in  the  present  generation,  a  moral  epidemic  which  has 
seized  upon  whole  districts,  like  St.  Anthony's  Dance  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  The  fancy  of  getting  up  "a  great  abomi 
nation,"  in  order  to  turn  it  to  account  as  a  topic  of  popular 
preaching,  is  as  old  as  the  first  consecrated  cobbler.  Nor  is 
it  at  all  a  new  thing  to  set  up  a  popular  sin  to  be  extirpated 
by  law.  Many  quack  politicians  have  been  wasting  their 
energies  for  years,  upon  the  abortive  attempt  to  legislate 
peaceable  families  into  the  disuse  of  spirituous  liquors,  by 
bringing  alcohol  into  platforms  and  making  parties  upon  it : 
but  alcohol  has  gained  the  day  and  the  Maine  Liquor  Law 
has  become  a  dead  letter.  The  world  laughs  at  this  prodi 
gality  of  ineffectual  zeal.  May  we  not  learn  to  treat  with 
quiet  scorn  the  more  malignant  but  still  impotent  ebullitions 
of  the  sanctimonious  vanity  of  New  England? 

In  truth,  slavery  has  not,  in  itself — I  mean  African  slavery 
as  now  existing  in  the  United  States — the  condition  for  any 
vehemently  honest  indignation  against  it;  nor,  on  the  other 
side,  for  any  vehemently  honest  affection  for  it.  It  is  simply 
a  very  appropriate  and  necessary  agent  in  the  interests  of 
civilization,  where  it  is;  and  would  be,  generally,  a  very 
wretched  thing  where  it  is  not.  The  wrath  that  is  stirred 
against  it,  and  the  patriarchal  beauty  that  is  claimed  for  it, 
are  both  the  offspring  of  excited  imaginations.  African 
slavery,  in  this  country,  at  least,  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  clear 


39 

gain  to  the  savage  it  has  civilized.  Whatever  it  may  be  to 
others,  it  has  been  a  blessing  to  him.  It  is  also  clearly  a 
blessing  to  Massachusetts,  and  to  England,  France,  Germany. 
But,  it  is  a  very  doubtful  blessing  to  the  master  who  has 
charged  himself  with  the  solicitude  of  supporting,  employing, 
and  caring  for  the  slave;  it  is,  at  best,  but  a  mixed  and 
greatly  diluted  blessing  to  him.  Strange,  that  those  who 
enjoy  the  unmixed  blessing  of  sharing  the  profits  of  slavery, 
should  be  the  rancorous  conspirators  against  the  peace  of  him 
who  takes  all  its  burthens  and  hazards  upon  himself! 

The  true  solution  of  all  this  extravagance  is,  that  the  im 
portance  given  to  the  questions  evolved  by  the  slavery 
excitement,  is  the  mere  artifice  of  politicians.  Our  slavery 
would  have  slept  quiet  under  the  surface  of  society,  until  the 
day  of  its  appointed  term,  if  it  had  not  been  found  service-/ 
able  as  a  figure  for  the  arena  of  politics.  Unfortunately,  it 
is  a  topic  of  singular  capability  for  either  a  discourse  in  the 
pulpit  or  a  speech  upon  the  stump;  the  most  fruitful  for 
exaggeration,  the  most  sensitive  for  alarm.  It  has  proved 
to  be  a  "drawing"  theme  for  sensation  parsons  in  pursuit  of 
popularity;  for  sensation  politicians  in  pursuit  of  the  Senate; 
for  speculative  editors  who  are  anxious  to  increase  their  sub 
scription  lists  by  means  of  pious  politics  and  cheap  philan 
thropy.  It  has  shown  itself  capable  of  converting  atrabi 
lious  tradesmen  into  governors,  legislators,  and  judges;  and 
of  lifting  up  innumerable  apprentices,  journeymen,  colpor 
teurs  and  pedagogues  to  the  elevation  of  shining  lights  in 
the  Conventicle.  It  has  fired  the  soul  of  many  a  cross-road 
orator  of  the  "sunny  South"  with  indignant  and  eloquent 
wrath  against  universal  Yankeedom ;  and  given  birth  to 
scores  of  conventions  and  thousands  of  resolutions,  to  expound 
the  Constitution  on  the  theory  that  its  authors  did  not  know 
what  they  were  about. 

Then,  again,  it  has  furnished  to  strong-minded  women,  who 
have  declared  their  independence  of  the  petticoat,  an  occasion 
for  an  equally  heroic  abnegation  of  the  prejudice  of  color,  and 


40 

so  to  bring  both  pantaloons  and  amalgamation  into  their  bill 
of  rights. 

It  has  over  and  over  again  supplied  a  conclave  of  crazy 
fanatics,  in  the  orgies  of  their  anniversaries,  with  an  oppor 
tunity  to  denounce  the  Union  as  a  covenant  of  hell,  and  the 
Bible  and  the  Constitution  as  a  double  curse  to  mankind.  It 
has,  on  the  other  hand,  wrought  the  remarkable  effect  of 
diverting  hot-headed  young  politicians  from  their  news 
papers  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  to  find  texts  in  the 
Pentateuch  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  to  convict  the  whole 
North  of  the  iniquity  of  blaspheming  the  "  divine  institu 
tion." 

It  has  done  all  this  and  a  thousand  times  as  much,  but  it 
has  never  yet  succeeded  in  establishing  a  single  point  for 
which  it  has  professed  to  contend,  nor  accomplished  a  single 
result  at  which  slavery  would  not  have  sooner  arrived,  if  left 
to  the  silent  evolution  of  its  own  destiny;  always  except 
ing,  from  this  denial  of  its  doings,  that  solitary  achieve- 
men — in  which  its  success  has  been  perfect — the  opening  of 
a  Pandora  box  of  murder,  rapine,  implacable  hatred  and 
revenge. 

It  has  made  and  defeated  Presidents,  cabinets,  and  diplo 
matists,  has  got  up  wars  and  annexations,  built  and  destroyed 
platforms;  but  it  has  been  utterly  impotent  to  arrest  the 
steady  increase  of  slave  labor,  or  its  transfer  to  whatever 
region  it  has  been  found  profitable  to  remove  it.  So  far  from 
promoting  lawful  emancipation,  or  checking  either  the  growth 
or  productiveness  of  slavery,  it  has  wholly  arrested  the  first, 
and  has  witnessed  the  augmentation  of  the  value  of  the  slave 
and  the  profits  of  his  work  a  hundredfold  since  the  agitation 
began. 

These  are  the  chief  triumphs,  and  these  the  failures  of  a 
slavery  agitation  of  thirty  years,  conducted  by  men  claiming 
to  be  intellectual,  conscientious,  and  stricken  with  a  conviction 
that  it  is  the  great  and  paramount  duty  of  the  age  to  reform, 
what  they  have  wrought  themselves  to  believe,  the  damning 


41 

sin  of  a  nation.  For  this,  clergymen  who  think  they  have  "a 
mission,"  spouters  who  think  themselves  orators,  and  politi 
cians  who 'think  themselves  statesmen,  have  gone  on  laboring 
all  these  thirty  years,  in  the  same  ceaseless  and  fruitless  rou 
tine  of  sermons,  philippics,  conventions,  and  discourses ;  vex 
ing  the  heart  of  the  South  with  vulgar  vituperation  and  insult, 
and  ruffling  the  temper  of  Congress  with  silly  petitions  to  do 
impossible  things,  showered,  in  endless  profusion  of  repetition, 
from  the  kitchens  and  primary  schools  and  factories  of  New 
England. 

So  far  as  the  agitation  kept  within  the  limits  of  this  phase 
of  its  career,  it  was  comparatively  harmless.  It  could  only 
provoke,  but  could  not  sting.  In  the  language  of  the  re 
viewer  I  have  quoted  above:  "It  could  but  make  us  angry." 
The  South,  indeed,  are  to  blame  for  their  loss  of  temper 
under  this  provocation ;  as  that  really  afforded  the  assailants 
the  only  gratification  they  had.  It  would  have  been  wiser 
to  treat  it  as  more  self-possessed  nations  are  accustomed  to 
treat  the  extravagancies  of  fanatacism ;  as  we  ourselves,  in 
deed,  now  treat  Mormonism,  or  free  love,  or  the  nonsense  of 
Fourierism. 

But  the  agitation  in  the  last  few  years  has  become  venom 
ous.  It  has  directed  its  activity  toward  disunion  and  destruc 
tion  of  the  government.  Finding  that  the  pretence  of  con 
scientious  regard  for  law,  and  action  within  the  pale  of  the 
statutes  cramped  its  benevolent  designs,  it  changed  its  tactics 
and  entered  into  a  more  congenial  career — devoting  its  energy 
to  a  plot  for  illegal  and  even  treasonable  disturbance,  by  en 
listing  companies  and  providing  facilities  for  stealthy  abduc 
tion  of  slaves,  by  provoking  servile  insurrection,  and  by 
armed  incursions  against  the  peace  of  communities  within 
the  slaveholding  region ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  solicited 
and  won  the  co-operation  of  many  States  to  this  organized 
plan  of  felony,  so  far  as  to  obtain  from  them  the  passage  of 
laws  to  nullify  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  and  the  stat 
utes  of  the  National  Legislature  for  the  recovery  of  the  fugi 
tives  which  might  escape  or  be  abducted  from  the  South. 


42 

This  is  the  second  and  now  existing  phase  of  the  agitation. 
Could  any  sensible  man  in  the  North  suppose,  that  a  union  of 
our  States  was  at  all  possible,  if  this  system  of  assault  and 
disturbance  were  recognized  and  sustained  by  any  respectable 
or  authoritative  opinion  in  the  Free  States?  Could  any  one 
imagine,  that  if  such  a  system  of  annoyance  should  receive 
the  sanction  of  legislative  bodies,  of  conventions  representing 
a  predominant  power  in  any  State,  of  religious  communities, 
of  parsons  holding  a  grade  above  an  insane  fanatic,  of  profes 
sors  of  colleges,  lawyers,  merchants  or  gentlemen  of  any 
weight  in  society — in  short,  of  any  portion  of  Northern  society 
that  might  be  regarded  as  the  exponent  of  the  common  opinion 
of  the  community — and  not  inevitably  and  inexorably  force 
upon  the  whole  South,  not  only  the  desire,  but  the  duty  to 
retire  from  a  compact  of  union  with  all  such  States  as  fostered 
such  an  agitation  ?  Between  independent  nations,  such  pro 
vocations  would  be  the  instant  and  just  cause  of  war,  and  no 
nation,  with  the  power  to  protect  its  own  peace  and  honor, 
would  hesitate  to  vindicate  itself  in  that  way. 

This  later  scheme  of  aggression  presents  the  first  earnest 
and  effective  movement  toward  disunion,  which  has  been  made 
outside  of  the  seceding  States.  The  Free  States  which  have 
encouraged,  or  co-operated  in,  this  scheme,  may  claim  what 
ever  credit  there  is,  in  being  the  first  to  set  the  ball  of  dis 
union  in  motion.  The  Border  States,  though  the  chief  suf 
ferers  from  these  attacks,  have  been  loyal  to  the  Constitution 
and  Union,  when  these  agitators  have  been  recreant. 

When  the  Republican  party  was  organized  in  the  bosom  of 
this  agitation,  and  abstract  and  useless  speculations,  touching 
the  control  of  slavery  by  the  Federal  Government,  were 
brought  into  the  political  field  by  both  parties,  to  heighten 
and  embitter  the  feud  between  the  two  sections;  when  all 
the  prestige  and  power  of  organized  political  forces  predomi 
nant  in  the  popular  vote  of  the  Union,  were  enlisted  in  battle 
array  against  the  South ;  when  a  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  contrary  to  all  previous  usage,  were  selected  from  the 


43 

same  section  to  represent  it ;  and  when  this  new  embodiment 
was  heralded  to  the  country,  with  proclamation  that  its  pur 
pose  was  the  administration  of  the  Government  toward  the 
enforcement  of  the  theory  of  an  irrepressible  conflict  with 
slavery,  until  every  vestige  of  it  should  be  banished  from  the 
Republic;  and  that  the  aid  of  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitu 
tion  should  be  sought  for  the  ratification  of  the  act, — was 
there  not  enough  to  propagate  a  wide  and  fearful  alarm 
throughout  the  whole  South  for  the  safety,  not  only  of  its 
property,  but  of  its  very  existence? 

The  systematic  abduction  of  slaves,  through  organized 
Northern  agencies,  is  already  sequestering  not  much  less  than 
a  million  of  Southern  wealth  every  year.  The  final  consum 
mation  of  this  movement  to  the  destruction  of  slavery,  would 
be  the  sequestration  of  one  or  two  thousand  millions  of  that 
wealth.  It  would  be  to  turn  several  States  back  into  a  jungle 
for  wild  beasts.  It  would  be  to  paralyze  the  industry  and 
subtract  one-half  from  the  comforts  of  Europe  and  America. 
Is  it  at  all  wonderful  that  now,  when  that  party  has  succeeded 
and  has  elected  its  President,  that  the  alarm  of  the  South 
should  be  increased,  and  that  the  Southern  States  should  feel 
that  a  crisis  had  been  forced  upon  them  which  is  to  determine 
whether  we  can  have  a  Union  in  peace — or  peace  without  a 
Union  ? 

These  are  the  true  sources  of  alarm  to  the  South,  and  these 
the  questions  which  the  people  there  earnestly  believe  they 
have  to  solve. 

If  it  were  really  true  that  the  whole  North  were  united  in 
this  scheme  of  aggression,  then,  indeed,  the  case  would  be 
hopeless.  Hundreds  of  thousands  in  the  South — the  great  ma 
jority  of  the  people — believe  this  to  be  so.  But,  it  is  not  true. 
Happily,  it  is  not  true.  The  belief  is  the  delusion  by  which\ 
the  Southern  mind  has  been  cruelly  abused:  abused  by 
credulous  and  ardent  politicians ;  by  selfish  demagogues ;  by 
a  prejudiced,  and,  sometimes,  by  a  wicked  press ;  by  the  poli 
ticians  of  party,  who  hope  to  find  in  the  wreck  of  society  \ 


44 

\ 

something  serviceable  to  the  reconstruction  of  their  power. 

No,  it  is  not  true  that  these  are  the  purposes  of  any  portion 
of  the  Free  States,  worthy  of  a  moment's  consideration  as 
a  force  to  influence  the  current  of  government.  Three- 
fourths — I  might  say  nine-tenths — of  the  people  of  the  Free 
States  are  as  guiltless  of  any  imagining  against  the  rights  of 
the  South,  or  its  peaceful  enjoyment  of  its  own  pursuits,  as 
the  people  of  the  South  themselves.  Any  one  acquainted 
with  the  real  opinion  of  the  North  will  say,  that  the  masses 
in  those  States  are  profoundly  unconscious  of  the  tendency 
of  the  doctrines  of  which  they  have  heard  so  much,  toward 
any  serious  assault  upon  the  South.  Their  prurient  tastes 
have  been  fed  to  plethora,  with  stories  of  the  barbarism  of 
slavery ;  and,  naturally  enough,  they  believe  that  it  is  a  very 
bad  thing ;  but  as  to  meddling  with  it,  further  than  going  to 
hear  a  lecture  upon  it  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Pepperpot,  and  to 
feast  upon  his  spiced  flummery,  they  have  not  the  least  wish 
or  purpose.  As  to  dissolving  the  Union  for  it! — they  open 
their  eyes  to  an  incredulous  stare,  and  won't,  even  now,  be 
lieve  that  there  is  a  man  in  the  United  States  so  insane  as  to 
dream  of  such  a  thing. 

To  the  conception  of  all  this  mass,  constituting  the  whole 
real  power  of  the  Free  States,  the  Republican  party  and  the 
Republican  President  are  but  the  regular  successors  to  the 
administration  of  the  government  which,  in  their  belief,  is  to 
be  conducted  in  the  old  fashion  of  attending  to  the  business 
of  the  country,  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  and  to 
giving  as  much  content  as  possible  to  every  section  and  every 
interest  in  the  country. 

They  are  quite  ready — I  speak  now  of  the  people,  and  not 
of  the  politicians ;  the  latter  have  already  proved  themselves 
to  be  Incapables,  and  the  matter  will  have  to  be  taken  out  of 
their  hands — these  masses  are  now  quite  ready  to  make  any 
arrangements,  constitutional  or  conventional,  which  may  be 
found  necessary  for  peace.  They  will  come  to  any  reasonable 
agreement  upon  intervention  or  non-intervention,  squatter 


45 

or  non-squatter  sovereignty,  protection  or  non-protection  of 
slavery  in  the  territories, — without  the  attempt  to  unriddle 
these  jargoms, — that  may  be  found  requisite  for  the  restora 
tion  of  good  temper  and  good  will  among  the  States.  They 
will  do  anything  to  save  the  Union  on  principles  adapted  to 
make  it  perpetual.  It  will  not  be  three  months  before  that 
will  be  the  whole  creed  of  the  Republican  party.  Let  the 
South  be  assured  of  this. 

The  first  duty  of  conciliation  lies  on  the  side  of  that  party. 
Let  the  North  dismiss  its  obstinacy  and  its  silence,  and  come, 
with  its  customary  shrewdness,  to  doingthe  fight  thing.  Get 
slavery  out  of  that  gigantic  and  tenacious  conscience  of  theirs, 
which  is  such  a  voracious  absorbent  ^of  other  people's  sins, 
and  fill  its  place  with  Christian  charity,  and  love  of  its  neigh 
bor,  and  other  forgotten  virtues,  and  we  shall  then  find  some 
returning  sunshine.  But  let  the  Free  States  everywhere,  and 
the  sober,  reflective,  and  honest  men  in  them,  understand,  that 
the  old  Union  is  an  impossibility  unless  the  agitation  of 
slavery  is  brought  to  an  end. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  which  may 
now  be  regarded  as  an  obstacle  to  this  pacification.  With 
whatever  apprehension  many  may  have  allowed  themselves  to 
anticipate,  from  that  election,  the  inauguration  of  a  policy 
which  would  be  one  of  continual  exasperation,  it  is  very  evi 
dent,  now  that  the  election  is  over  and  the  views  of  the  new 
President  are  becoming  known  through  the  best  accredited 
organs  of  the  party  he  represents,  that  there  is  no  reason  to 
fear  his  administration  will  not  be  conducted  with  a  salutary 
and  becoming  respect  for  the  rights  and  interests  of  every 
portion  of  the  country.  Indeed,  from  the  date  of  the  nomi 
nation  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  presages  of  political  events  have 
all  been  favorable  to  a  better  hope  of  the  future,  than  we 
might  gather  from  the  pernicious  zeal  and  intemperate  pro 
clamation  of  those  who  assumed  to  be  the  leading  champions 
and  most  authentic  expounders  of  the  principles  of  his  party. 

His  nomination  was  both  a  surprise  and  a  disappointment 


46 

to  what  may  be  termed  the  most  demonstrative  portion  of  the 
Republican  party.  He  was  selected  as  the  more  eligible  can 
didate,  in  the  belief  that  he  would  attract  a  support  from  States 
and  large  masses  of  the  people  who  were  not  willing  to  adopt 
the  extreme  views  upon  which  his  rival  for  the  nomination  was 
put  forward.  And  in  the  eventual  trial  he  was  elected,  in 
great  part,  by  a  vote  representing  rather  an  opposition  to  the 
democratic,  than  a  concurrence  with  the  distinctive  and  excep 
tionable  principles  of  the  Republican  party.  In  other  words, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  both  nominated  and  elected  by  what  may  be 
called  the  moderate,' "conservative  division  of  the  Republican 
party.  And  it  is  now  claimed  for  him — and  apparently  with 
his  own  approbation — that  he  stands  before  the  people  of  the 
United  States  unembarrassed  by  the  extreme  pretensions  which 
were  set  up  for  the  party  in  the  canvass ;  and  that  he  will 
enter  into  office  not  only  with  the  determination,  but  with  the 
desire  to  render  his  administration  one  of  impartial  justice  to 
the  South. 

There  is  at  least  a  good  omen  in  this,  and  the  strongest 
motive  for  an  appeal  to  the  South  to  wait  for  more  explicit 
demonstration  of  the  policy  of  the  coming  administration. 

If  the  seceding  States,  in  their  zeal  for  a  separate  confed 
eracy,  are  not  willing  to  wait  for  this  demonstration,  it  will 
be  justly  regarded  by  the  world  as  a  confession  that  the  revo 
lution  in  which  they  have  embarked  has  only  been  promoted, 
but  not  originated,  by  the  event  upon  which  they  have  here 
tofore  placed  its  justification. 

If  they  are  not  willing  to  wait,  the  Border  States  will  not 
be  shaken  from  their  resolves  to  wait  and  avail  themselves  of 
every  favorable  incident  that  may  be  turned  to  the  account  of 
peaceful  adjustment. 

Upon  the  new  President  will  then  devolve  the  responsibility 
of  bringing  the  influence  of  the  government,  and  the  weight 
of  his  own  admonition  and  example,  to  the  duty  of  defining 
and  determining  (if  that  be  not  successfully  done  by  his  friends 
before  his  inauguration)  the  pledges  which  his  party  are  dis- 


47 

posed  to  give  for  the  permanent  establishment  of  friendly 
relations  between  the  two  sections  of  the  Union.  We  have 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  influence  to  this  end 
will  be  propitious  to  peace.  It  will  then  be  seen,  that  in  the 
position  assumed  by  the  Border  States — in  their  firmness,  jus 
tice,  and  dignified  bearing  throughout  this  controversy — they 
will  have  become  the  authoritative  and  controlling  power  to 
devise  and  establish  the  foundations  of  a  secure  and  durable 
settlement,  with  every  provision  for  the  preservation  of  South 
ern  rights  which  the  seceding  States  themselves  could  reason 
ably  demand. 

BALTIMORE,  December  17,  I860, 


,.     ,-v- 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRA! 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT, 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall 


•      .  .. 

Mtu/j  .5.0 

a  8 




MM  16 
F£B 


71s4PM5f 


LD  21A-407r<,-4,'63 
(D647lslO)476B 


LD  21A-50m-8,'5f 
(C8481slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


